The Price of Saving a Life
by Inspirement
Summary: Harry learns that saving Ginny from the Chamber of Secrets had much greater consequences than he could ever imagine. NOTE: Soul-Bond content inside. *THIS STORY IS STILL BEING WORKED ON BUT IT'S GOING SLOW*
1. An Unexpected Birthday Gift

_**A/N:** This is my attempt at a Soul-Bond story. I love the genre, but sometimes I have encountered stuff that made me think, 'if I wrote this, I would do it totally different'. Well, this is it. This is how a Soul-Bond would work if I could decide._

_Yes, I have basically copied the letters from the books, and only made small adjustments to fit my story. There was really no way I could make the letters better, even though I tried, so there it is. Hope you understand._

**Chapter One**

**An Unexpected  
Birthday Gift**

On the morning of July 29th, 1993, Harry woke up feeling unusually tired. He looked at the clock on his bedside table and groaned. It was half past six, and in an hour his Uncle Vernon would arrive in the kitchen, expecting breakfast. Usually, this didn't bother Harry. He had long since got used to making breakfast for his aunt and uncle, but today he was just too tired to care. He felt like he hadn't slept at all. He rolled over and buried his face in his pillows. He was asleep in less than a minute.

• • •

When Harry woke again, it was to the sound of his bedroom door slamming open so violently that the door handle made a hole where it struck the wall.

"BOY!" bellowed Uncle Vernon from the doorway. Harry knew without looking at him that he was purple in the face. He had probably been yelling from the bottom of the stairs for quite some time.

Harry couldn't have made breakfast even if he had wanted to. He still felt like he had been fed some kind of powerful sleeping draught and, as if that wasn't enough, he also felt the beginning of a headache–which wasn't improved by his uncle screaming at him about doing one's share of the work in the household and himself having to go to work hungry.

_As if you would go hungry for long with that bakery across the street from your office,_ Harry thought. He had heard enough stories about that place since Vernon's third favourite thing to do, after complaining about Harry and stuffing his face, was talk about food.

He briefly contemplated telling his uncle that he didn't feel up to doing any kind of work today, but decided that it wouldn't make any difference. Uncle Vernon wouldn't believe him anyway.

"Why are you just lying there, boy? Get to work!" Vernon barked as he crossed the room to Harry's bed. Harry braced himself for the inevitable.

Vernon grabbed Harry's arm and forced him up into a sitting position. Harry felt a wave of nausea wash over him, and he clapped a hand over his mouth, resisting the urge to throw up, but before anyone really had the time to react, Harry had covered his uncle's best suit with yesterday's dinner.

Vernon backed away quickly as Harry deposited more half-digested food onto his bed. The last thing he was aware of before passing out was his uncle swearing that, after he had found another suit, he wouldn't rest until he had his revenge.

• • •

The next time Harry came to, his room was bathed in sunlight. The clock on his bedside table told him that it was just before noon.

Harry noticed that he didn't feel as tired anymore. His headache had gotten worse though, and when he tried to sit up, the world began to spin. Luckily, it wasn't as bad as that morning, and he managed to keep his food where it belonged.

That's when he noticed that his bedclothes were still stained with the evidence of his earlier sickness. Evidently, no one had cared enough to do anything about it, which meant that he would have to muster the strength to do it himself.

Harry forced himself to get up and began to change the bedclothes, all the while cursing the _Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery,_ which was unreasonably restricting him from using a spell to dull the pain in his head. Therefore, despite his well-known dislike of potions, Harry had an urge to take out his potions kit and cauldron and attempt to brew a pain-relieving potion. He didn't care that they wouldn't learn it until fourth year; his headache was so intense, and he was sure that he had seen the recipe in there somewhere. Unfortunately, he didn't think he could do it without the Dursleys noticing anything.

When he was done changing the sheets, he made his way to the bathroom and brushed his teeth to get the taste of vomit out of his mouth. After some rummaging in the cabinet, he also found some Muggle pain pills. They weren't as effective as a potion, nor did they act as quickly, but they would have to do.

He then made his way slowly down to the kitchen, hoping to find something to eat. He didn't really have an appetite, but he knew from experience that not eating would only make him feel worse in the end. He could hear the television in the living room, but if his Aunt Petunia had heard him coming down the stairs, she ignored him. This suited Harry just fine.

He dug out some bread from the pantry and proceeded to make himself a sandwich as he neither had the will to prepare, nor the stomach to process, anything heavier right then. When he had finished eating, he returned to his room and sat down on the bed, putting his head in his hands, wondering what was happening to him. Yesterday he had been fine, and then today he was suddenly more sick than he could ever remember being. Weren't these things supposed to happen gradually?

He closed his eyes and tried to remember if he had eaten anything unusual lately, but couldn't think of anything.

He lay back on the bed, waiting for the pain pills to start working, but despite the fact that he was still exhausted, the throbbing in his head prevented him from getting any real rest.

Eventually, he resigned himself to the fact that he wouldn't sleep anytime soon and grabbed the nearest book he could reach: _Quidditch Through the Ages._ It had been a thank-you gift from Fred and George for saving their sister from the Chamber of Secrets two months ago.

He had just skimmed through a chapter called _Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland,_ when he heard the front door open and close, followed by his Cousin Dudley's impatient voice yelling, "Mom! I'm hungry!"

To Harry's immediate dislike, this was followed by Dudley's friend Piers Polkiss exclaiming, "Do you have anything left of your excellent treacle tart?"

Harry had always been slightly surprised by his aunt's blindness when it came to her son and his friends. Her usually being so perceptive about everything else, totally missed the evidence of her son being anything less than the innocent boy he made himself out to be in front of his parents.

Harry knew better though. He had seen Dudley's gang tormenting other kids enough, and had been the victim of said activity more than he could remember. He had even seen them hiding in a clump of bushes behind the supermarket once, smoking cigarettes. Needless to say, Harry didn't like Dudley's gang one bit.

He closed his book and rolled over on his back. Hearing Dudley with his friends made Harry miss his own friends: Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.

He had exchanged a few letters with Ron during the month they had been home for their summer holidays, but since Harry's uncle didn't approve of owl post–or anything magical for that matter–he couldn't be seen sending too many letters.

The funniest attempt of communication from the Wizarding world, however, had been when Ron had attempted to make a telephone call.

It had been quite the scene when Uncle Vernon answered the phone, only to have Ron yelling in his ear. At the time, Harry had felt sorry for his best mate, but looking back, it had been rather funny.

Now being in a much better mood, Harry decided that he ought to write a letter to him. The pain pills had started to work and he felt a little better.

He reached over to his desk drawer and pulled out a piece of parchment, an eagle feather quill and a bottle of ink and started writing.

He told Ron all about the Dursleys' latest campaign to make him feel worthless and asked him–for the fourth time–if he could come to the Burrow. Ron had been quite vague on the subject, but Harry didn't know why. When he was done, he gave the letter to his owl, Hedwig, and sent her off.

• • •

The next day went by in a haze of tiredness and sickness, but on the day after that–the day that happened to be his birthday–Harry felt much better. He was still a little tired and he still had a headache, but today it was at least manageable.

He went up to his room after breakfast to find three owls sitting on his desk. He recognised two of them immediately. One was his own Hedwig: a beautiful snowy owl, who he had got from the Hogwarts gamekeeper on his eleventh birthday. The other one was the Weasley family owl, Errol, who was very old and extremely clumsy. The third owl, Harry didn't recognise, but from the Hogwarts crest on the letter it was carrying, it wasn't hard to guess where it had come from. Harry took the Hogwarts letter and a badly wrapped package from its beak and the owl jumped out through Harry's bedroom window and took off.

Harry turned and took the package Errol was carrying. As he had guessed, it was from Ron.

He ripped it open and discovered two things. A gold wrapped present and an envelope.

He opened the envelope first and two pieces of paper fell out: a letter and a newspaper clipping. The clipping featured a moving black-and-white photo of the Weasley family standing in front of a large pyramid. There was an article printed underneath it.

**MINISTRY OF MAGIC EMPLOYEE SCOOPS GRAND PRIZE**

_Arthur Weasley, Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office at the Ministry of Magic, has won the annual Daily Prophet Grand Prize Galleon Draw._

_A delighted Mr Weasley told the Daily Prophet, "We will be spending the gold on a summer holiday in Egypt, where our eldest son, Bill, works as a curse breaker for Gringotts Wizarding Bank."_

_The Weasley family will be spending a month in Egypt, returning for the start of the new school year at Hogwarts, which five of the Weasley children currently attend._

Harry looked at the photo again and his heart constricted in happiness for the Weasleys. If anyone deserved to win a large pile of gold, they did. They were the nicest people Harry had ever met. They had basically taken him in as one of their own when he visited them for the last part of the summer holidays the previous year. They were also a rather large family, so most of their money was used on the household and not much was left for spending on pleasure. Yes, the Weasleys certainly deserved it.

Harry put the newspaper clipping down and picked up Ron's letter.

_Dear Harry_

_Happy birthday! _

_Egypt was brilliant! Bill showed us around all the tombs and you wouldn't believe the curses those old Egyptian wizards put on them. Mum wouldn't let Ginny come in the last one. There were all these mutant skeletons in there, of Muggles who'd broken in and grown extra heads and stuff. _

_Unfortunately, Ginny got really sick a few days ago and we had to cut our vacation short. I don't know what's going on, but it seems really serious, because I overheard mum and dad talking about contacting Dumbledore. I hope she'll be okay. _

_I asked mum about letting you come here, but she said she had to talk to Dumbledore about it. I don't know why, but I'll let you know when I have an answer. _

_Don't let the Muggles get you down! _

_P.S. Percy's Head Boy. He got the letter last week._

Harry glanced at the photograph again and, sure enough, there was a polished Head Boy badge pinned on his robes, gleaming in the stark Egyptian sun.

He turned to Ron's present and unwrapped it eagerly. Inside was what looked like a small glass spinning top with a note attached to it with spello-tape.

_Harry–this is a Pocket Sneakoscope. If there's someone untrustworthy around, it's supposed to light up and spin. Bill says it's rubbish sold for wizard tourists and isn't reliable, because it kept lighting up at dinner last night. But he didn't realise Fred and George had put beetles in his soup. _

_Bye–Ron_

Harry picked up the Sneakoscope and put it on his desk. It stood there silently, balancing on its tip. He poked it with his finger, causing it to wobble, but it never fell over.

As he reached for the parcel Hedwig had now dropped on the desk, he thought absentmindedly that a Sneakoscope would have been handy in his first year at Hogwarts since the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor had been walking around with Voldemort on the back of his head. That would certainly count as untrustworthy.

Inside this package too, there was a wrapped present, a card and a letter. This time from Hermione.

_Dear Harry,_

_Ron wrote to me and told me about his phone call to your Uncle Vernon. I do hope you're all right._

_I'm on holiday in France at the moment and I didn't know how I was going to send this to you–what if they'd opened it at customs?–but then Hedwig turned up! I think she wanted to make sure you got something for your birthday for a change. I bought your present by owl-order; there was an advertisement in the Daily Prophet (I've been getting it delivered; it's so good to keep up with what's going on in the Wizarding world). Did you see that picture of Ron and his family a week ago? I bet he's learning loads. I'm really jealous–the ancient Egyptian wizards were fascinating._

_There's some interesting local history of witchcraft here, too. I've rewritten my whole History of Magic essay to include some of the things I've found out, I hope it's not too long–it's two rolls of parchment more than Professor Binns asked for._

_Ron says he's going to be in London in the last week of the holidays. Can you make it? Will your aunt and uncle let you come? I really hope you can. If not, I'll see you on the Hogwarts Express on September first!_

_Love from Hermione _

_P.S. Ron says Percy's Head Boy. I'll bet Percy's really pleased. Ron doesn't seem too happy about it._

Harry laughed and put the letter aside. Only Hermione would rewrite a whole essay just to reflect the location she happened to be in, but that was one of the things he liked about her. She was very dedicated to what she did and sought to excel at whatever project she was working on–be it an essay for school or helping him solve whatever mystery they were currently involved with. The only problem was that she actively tried to make him and Ron follow in her footsteps, which was something neither of them had the ability to do.

He picked up Hermione's present and began peeling off the wrapping paper. His first impression was that she had given him a book. It wouldn't have been the first time it happened, and she had a well-deserved reputation for being quite obsessed with them. His suspicions were strengthened when black leather started to show underneath. When the top was uncovered though, he was pleasantly surprised. It wasn't a book after all: it was something much better.

On a sleek black leather case was a bronze plaque with words stamped in shining silver lettering.

**BROOMSTICK SERVICING KIT**

"Wow, Hermione," he whispered to the empty room as he undid the clasps and opened the leather clad wooden box.

Inside was every tool you could imagine for broomcare and service. Bottles of _Fleetwood's High-Finish Handle Polish_, silver Tail-Twig Clippers, a brass clip-on compass for long-distance flying, and a _Handbook of Do-It-Yourself Broomcare._

Resisting the urge to try it all out at once, he closed the lid and picked up the last parcel, which had been delivered by the Hogwarts owl. He ripped it open and picked up the card first. He recognised the untidy scrawl at once as belonging to Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper.

_Dear Harry, _

_Happy Birthday! _

_Think you might find this useful for next year._

_Won't say no more here. Tell you when I see you. _

_Hope the Muggles are treating you right. _

_All the best, _

_Hagrid_

Intrigued, Harry started to rip the paper off the present. The moment he had removed the unusually thick ribbon, however, it sprang open by itself and immediately snapped at his fingers, startling him and making him drop it. He barely glimpsed something poison-green and leathery slip under his bed.

Harry leapt onto the bed and lay down on his stomach, lowering his head over the edge to look underneath. He saw something flat and edgy coming his way and he pulled back fast when the thing came back out in the open. Harry was surprised to see that it was a book.

He threw himself on top of it and flattened it against the floor; then he grabbed the nearest pillow and emptied the pillowcase, stuffing the book into it and tying it tightly. He briefly saw the words _The Monster Book of Monsters_ stamped on the cover. Harry couldn't help but think that it was an appropriate name for it.

The only thing left now was the Hogwarts letter, but since Harry was rather tired from the fight with the book, and his headache had started to increase as a result, he laid back on the bed for a quick nap.

• • •

An hour later, according to his alarm clock, Harry was awakened by his uncle yelling from the bottom of the stairs.

"BOY! COME DOWN HERE AT ONCE!"

_What does he want now?_ Harry groaned groggily, but wanting to avoid a repeat of the scene of two days ago, he dutifully got up and walked downstairs.

As he entered the living room, all traces of sleepiness disappeared immediately. There–sitting on the Dursleys' sofa, looking quite out of place–were the four people he least expected to see.

On the side closest to the door, his long white beard curling in his lap and his intricately decorated Wizard's robes looking even more eccentric than usual by contrast of the Dursleys' clean living room, was Dumbledore. Next to him sat Mr Weasley, his eyes flicking between the television set and the telephone as if he couldn't decide which to get his hands on first to take it apart and see how it worked.

Beside him sat Mrs Weasley, a plump woman with a usually kind face, though today the only emotions it showed were worry and fear. The most unexpected visitor, though, was sitting on the side farthest away from him. Ron's sister. Ginny–the youngest of the Weasleys–was twisting her hands and avoided everyone's gaze. She looked more nervous than he had ever seen her before.

"Ah, Harry," Dumbledore said, "Please, take a seat." The old man waved his wand casually, producing three comfortable looking armchairs. "This concerns you as well, Mr and Mrs Dursley," he continued, gesturing to the seats.

Harry sat down in one of the chairs, facing the others. At a look from Vernon, Petunia disappeared into the kitchen and returned with two of the kitchen chairs. Dumbledore waved his wand again and the conjured armchairs vanished again.

"Now, Mr Dursley," Dumbledore began as the Dursleys had taken their seats, "Where is your son?"

"What's it to you?" Vernon barked back.

"I simply want to know that he won't hear this conversation," Dumbledore replied calmly.

"He's at a friend's house," Vernon grunted, "Which reminds me," he continued, "I'll have to pick up Marge at the station in ten minutes, so you'll have to do this quickly."

Harry cursed inwardly. Aunt Marge, who was Vernon's sister, shared the title of _Harry's least favourite person in the world_ with Draco Malfoy. Her coming to stay over would undoubtedly be the worst birthday present they had given him yet.

"Arrangements have been made for your sister to arrive at this time tomorrow. We have all the time we need," Dumbledore said, and Harry swore he could see the old man's eyes twinkle.

"What have you done to her?" Vernon growled threateningly.

"Nothing," said Dumbledore. "If you have to know, the train she was supposed to take unexpectedly stopped working and no replacement trains seem to be available for some reason. I think quite a few trains have broken down today. Must be an epidemic," he added merrily. Harry knew enough about the old man to be sure that he was well aware of the fact that there was no such thing as a 'train epidemic', but the Dursleys' didn't. Indeed, Uncle Vernon's moustache twitched as the man's fury level steadily rose. Harry just leaned back in the cosy armchair as the men stared into each other's faces. If it came to a fight, Harry had no doubt who would come out on as the winner.

"Fine," spat Uncle Vernon venomously after a couple of minutes' silent battle of wills. "Now what is this all about?"

"Before we begin," said Dumbledore, turning away from Vernon, addressing the rest of the people in the room, "I need to impress upon you the gravity of what we are to discuss today. What is said here is to be treated as classified information. You are not to breathe a word about it to anyone," he looked pointedly at Mrs Weasley, "Not even to your sons."

Dumbledore looked around the room and everyone nodded their consent, even the Dursleys, although reluctantly.

"Now, Mr Dursley, what do you know about what happened at the end of Harry's last school year?"

"Why should I know anything about it?" asked Uncle Vernon.

"Because the consequences of those events will affect you," Dumbledore replied mystically.

As the Dursleys were briefed on the incident in the Chamber of Secrets, Harry noticed that Ginny seemed to get more and more agitated. He didn't blame her. Being possessed by the spirit of Voldemort for a year must have been a traumatic experience. He could almost feel the guilt and shame radiating out of her, and had a sudden urge to walk over and comfort her...

"But if Harry saved this girl–Minnie or whatever her name is–how could this possibly concern us?" Vernon interjected when Dumbledore was finished. Harry noticed Mrs Weasley shooting Vernon a disgusted look when he got her daughter's name wrong.

"Well, you see, Mr Dursley, when one wizard saves another's life, a magical bond known as a _life debt_ is formed," said Dumbledore. "Under normal circumstances, this bond requires the person being saved to repay the debt, should an opportunity arise. It is my belief, however, that in the case of Mr Potter and Miss Weasley, this life debt is, in fact, fuelling another–much stronger–bond. Tell me, do you believe in the human soul, Mr Dursley?"

Uncle Vernon looked at Dumbledore for a few minutes, and then said, "No."

"I assure you that it's quite real," Dumbledore said. "The soul is your sense of self. It allows you to interact with the world around you and think for yourself. The body can survive without the soul, but you would basically be–as the Muggle term so elegantly puts it–a vegetable," Dumbledore said.

"That's all very well, Dumbledore," said Mrs Weasley, now slightly hysterically, "But what does all this have to do with my daughter?"

Instead of answering the question, Dumbledore turned to Ginny.

"Miss Weasley, may I ask how you feel physically at this moment?"

Ginny looked up and said timidly, "I-I'm fine, s-sir."

"And Mr Potter, how do you feel?" Dumbledore continued.

"I'm fine too, sir," he replied.

"And how did you feel a few days ago?" Dumbledore prompted, and at that moment Harry realised that he really was fine–all traces of his earlier headache, tiredness and sickness were gone.

"I was rather sick, sir," Harry replied truthfully, glancing at Vernon, who was getting a mad glint in his eye. He had evidently not forgotten the _suit incident_ either.

"Yes, I thought you might have been," said Dumbledore. "You see, dear Molly, it is my belief that Mr Potter and your daughter have entered a soul bond–"

"But how?" Mrs Weasley interjected. "I thought that was only myth and legend!"

"I'm afraid it's not," said Dumbledore. "There are no known ways to test if a bond has indeed been formed, but its effects are quite well documented if you know where to look. That's why I asked you to inform me if there were any sudden changes in your daughter's health. You see, the initial stages of bonding require the persons involved to be physically close to each other, else they fall ill. The fact that bringing them both together cured both their illnesses only confirms my suspicions. I'm sure you all see the complications of this situation."

Harry was stunned. He shared a soul bond? With Ginny? He had so many questions he wanted to ask. How did it happen? Why? What does it even mean to be soul bonded with someone, and what were the complications Dumbledore was talking about? He decided to voice this last question first.

"Sir, what do you mean with 'complication'? If Ginny and I have to be close to each other, doesn't that mean that I can live with the Weasleys for the rest of the summer?" he said hopefully.

"I'm afraid not, Harry," Dumbledore replied sadly. "You see, when your mother chose to die to save you, she invoked three layers of magical protection for you. The first two you already know–they were the ones to make the killing curse rebound upon Voldemort–" The Weasleys flinched "–and preventing Quirrell from touching you.

"The third layer is in the form of a blood-ward. It will keep you safe wherever your mother's blood dwells–in this case," he glanced at Petunia, "with her sister."

"Okay, fine. How long do I have to stay," Harry began, but then he understood exactly what Dumbledore had talked about when he mentioned a complication. "NO!" he said firmly, "Absolutely not. Ginny is _not_ staying here; no way!"

"You can't mean that, Dumbledore," Mrs Weasley interrupted them all. "Ginny... live with these Muggles? I won't have it," she said. "I don't trust them."

Harry, who silently agreed, looked at Ginny. She had yet to say a thing about what she thought about all this. She looked up at him and blushed. She seemed to understand his silent question though.

"Well," she began, "I wouldn't mind staying here–I mean, it's not like we have any choice, is it?" she said timidly, not meeting his eyes.

"Believe me, you don't want to stay here," said Harry, completely disregarding the fact that his aunt and uncle were sitting right beside him.

"I'm afraid Miss Weasley is right, Harry," said Dumbledore. "We simply have no alternatives. You won't have to stay here all summer, though. I think two weeks will suffice."

"Now wait just one moment!" Uncle Vernon barked out. "Don't we get a say in this? I won't have another one of _your kind_ in my house!"

"You see?" Mrs Weasley shot in, "I'm not leaving my baby in the care of people with this old-fashioned attitude!"

"Old-fashioned?" yelled Vernon, leaning forward threateningly, "Who are you to speak of old-fashioned? Look at what you are wearing! You look practically medieval, all of you!"

"Don't talk to my wife that way!" Mr Weasley exclaimed, drawing his wand and pointing it at Vernon, who recoiled as if he was facing the barrel of a gun instead of a stick of wood.

"Get that thing away from me!" Vernon shouted hysterically, sitting back in his chair so fast that Harry was surprised it didn't tip over backwards.

Harry glanced at Ginny, who had assumed a position that made her look like a little ball with bright red hair. She was ashamed that her foolish trust in the diary had led to the bond forming, and ultimately the loud shouting match between her parents and Harry's guardians. How Harry knew this, he didn't know, but he was sure it was true.

He wondered if there was any way that he could stay at the Weasleys anyway. Perhaps if they put up better protection around the Burrow…

Suddenly there was a loud bang, some startled shrieks and a bright flash of light, and everything went quiet. When the spots in Harry's eyes had disappeared, he saw Dumbledore standing in the middle of the room, his wand drawn. The other adults were rubbing their eyes and ears.

"Now that I have your attention, how about we discuss this in a civil tone and avoid personal insults?" Dumbledore suggested.

Before anyone had any chance to say anything else, Harry took his chance to ask the Headmaster about his idea.

"Sir, couldn't you just put up better protection at the Burrow?" he asked, "so I could stay there instead?"

"No, I'm sorry Harry, but no matter what I did, it still would not be as effective as the blood-wards here. In order to simulate this ward at The Burrow, I would have to use the Fidelius charm, as well as anti-Apparition wards, Unplottable charms and many more. I dare say that would interfere with the Weasleys' way of life a little too much." Dumbledore looked at Molly, who frowned, but nodded.

"What if we were to check in on them regularly?" asked Mr Weasley, eyeing his wife to gauge her reaction. "And if there are any signs of mistreatment, we'll take them straight home to the Burrow, blood-wards or not."

"And I want nightly reports by owl," added Mrs Weasley.

Dumbledore nodded. "That's understandable," he said. Then he looked at the Dursleys.

"Oh, do we get a say in this?" Uncle Vernon grunted sarcastically. "I don't want any of them here," he stated, not making any attempt to hide his distaste.

"Oh, I think you may find that you will, Mr Dursley," said Dumbledore. "As I have explained, there's really no other way, and if _you_ kick any of them out, some very interesting things might happen."

"Are you threatening me, old man?" growled Uncle Vernon.

"Oh no, not at all," said Dumbledore, and Harry could almost swear that his Headmaster was smiling. "I'm merely pointing out some facts," he continued. "You see, when you took Harry in, you made a binding magical oath to let him stay with you until he is of age, which is when the blood-wards will break. Since Harry is now bonded to Miss Weasley, denying her to stay here would in fact be a violation of that same oath–and you have to understand that nothing good has ever come from breaking a magical oath."

Uncle Vernon got beet red in the face, but seemed to understand that Dumbledore was not a man to cross, so instead of arguing, he stalked out of the room grunting, "Fine, the girl can stay, but I'll keep my eyes on her, mark my words." Aunt Petunia followed him out a few seconds later.

"Good, then that's settled," said Dumbledore. Harry couldn't remember when he had agreed to this, but then again, he couldn't remember agreeing to much today. The best thing to do would be to make the most of the situation. On the upside, he wouldn't be alone with the Dursleys anymore, but on the other hand, the person he would be spending time with was Ron's shy little sister, who had barely said three words to him despite him staying with her family for a month last year. But since they were now soul bonded, he thought that perhaps he should pay more attention to her.

"Sir, exactly what does it mean to be soul bonded to someone?" Harry asked.

"That is a very good question, Harry," answered Dumbledore. "Since the last persons to share a soul bond died almost a century ago, there is no one who can tell you. Records show however that the most common side effects include shared feelings and the ability to instantly locate their bond mate."

"Wow," said Harry. That sounded like some really cool powers to have.

"Now if you'll excuse me, Arthur, Molly, I would like some time to talk to Harry and Ginny in private," Dumbledore said.

"Of course," said Mrs Weasley, still looking a little put out, "We'll be just outside."

When the elder Weasleys had left, Dumbledore turned back to Harry and Ginny.

"Now, I know what you're thinking–you can't wait for this bond to take effect, and you might think that it's all just some new powers–but I want to warn you right now that it's not; at least not all of the time. This bond will–in time–mean a complete loss of privacy between the two of you. There are reports of instances where the bond mates managed to dampen their connection, but even then it was only for short periods of time. Most of the time, you will know almost everything about what the other is feeling, doing and sometimes even thinking at any given moment."

Harry looked at Ginny, and suddenly he didn't feel at all so at ease with this soul bond thing. In fact, it was starting to scare him a little; and from the look on Ginny's face, he could tell that it was scaring her too. Again, he felt the urge to comfort her, but before he could move, Dumbledore began speaking again.

"Sharing a soul bond is not something you should take lightly. I know you didn't ask for this to happen, but that just makes it even more important to try and make this work.

"I wish I could give you more advice, but the only thing I can say for sure is that you should care for each other like you would care for yourselves. After all, if one of you is unhappy, you will both be unhappy."

• • •

"I Apparated home and picked up your trunk," Mr Weasley told Ginny when they went out into the hallway ten minutes later.

Mrs Weasley immediately leapt forward and enveloped Ginny in a tight hug, whispering things in her ear that Harry couldn't hear. She then turned to the boy and gave him a crushing hug too.

"If they do or say anything, promise you'll owl me," she said through barely held back tears. "And look after my baby," she added.

Harry felt a little awkward. That was usually a request made to an adult supervisor, but Harry supposed that, as he was the only person that she trusted who would be there, the task to ensure Ginny's safety came to rest on his shoulders. "I will," he whispered back.

When Dumbledore and the Weasleys had left, Harry picked up Ginny's trunk, and pulled it towards the stairs–Ginny followed closely behind him.

When they reached the top of the stairs, Harry turned towards the door opposite his own and showed Ginny inside.

"Here's the guest room. I guess this is where you'll sleep," Harry said as he placed the trunk at the foot of the bed.

The room was–like everything in the Dursley household–spotless. Aunt Petunia came up to tidy this room at least once a week just _'in case we would ever have important guests.'_ As far as Harry could remember though, Ginny was actually the first guest who was not family to ever use this room; something Harry found both ironic and satisfying. Dudley never had any friends sleeping over. He claimed that slumber parties were for 'nerds and girls.'

Harry went and sat down on the chair by the desk. He looked around at the sparsely furnished room. On the wall opposite the desk was an empty bookcase, and along one wall was the bed. The remaining wall held the door and a wardrobe. The little floor that was left in the middle was completely empty.

Harry felt quite reluctant to leave her yet, so he asked her if she needed help to unpack some things.

"Sure," she said, smiling at him shyly.

They worked in silence, and soon Ginny's few belongings were unpacked. Her schoolbooks were on the bookshelf, a stack of parchment, a few quills and some bottles of ink were on the desk and a photo of her family stood on the bedside table. They had decided to keep her clothes in her trunk.

When they were done, Harry sat down on the desk chair again and Ginny sat on the bed.

"So," said Harry after a minute of uncomfortable silence. "We're soul bound."

"Yeah," Ginny answered. She had folded her hands in her lap again and avoided looking at him.

"It's not your fault you know," Harry said. Ginny nodded but didn't say anything, so he decided to try something else.

"So," he said again, mentally cringing at how he was repeating himself. "How much do you know about soul bonds?"

"No more than you do, I guess," she said. "Like Mum, I thought they were just myth. I only know what Dumbledore told us."

She looked up at him, and Harry was startled to see her eyes shining with unshed tears.

"Harry," she whispered. "What if we can't handle this bond? What if we end up hating each other?"

Again, Harry was overcome with the urge to comfort her, and this time he didn't fight it. He walked over to the bed and sat down beside her. He reached out to take her hand, but just as their skin touched, a jolt of static electricity shot through his arm, making him snatch his hand back. They looked at each other wide-eyed for a second before Ginny held out her hand again, inviting him to make another try.

This time, nothing happened, and Harry held her hand tightly.

"We'll be okay," he said. "Somehow, we'll get through this."

Harry felt his own eyes start to tear up, and suddenly he wasn't as sure of what he had just said. He felt a sort of hopelessness washing over him suddenly. Perhaps they _wouldn't_ make it? Perhaps they _would_ grow to despise each other?

Harry looked at Ginny, and the tears were now slowly trickling down her cheeks.

"Sorry," he muttered, letting go of her hand, and immediately, the feeling of helplessness stopped. He dried his eyes and looked at her hand.

"What just-" he began, but then Dumbledore's earlier words echoed in his head: _the most common side effects include shared feelings…_

Was that what had happened? Had he felt Ginny's feelings? Had it begun already? It was the only explanation that made sense.

He looked at Ginny again. She looked at him confusedly, and Harry realised that he had been staring at the wall with his jaw open. He closed it and composed himself.

"May I try something?" he asked.

Ginny hesitated a little, but then said, "Yes."

Harry summoned all the good feelings he could–which were depressingly few–and took Ginny's hand again. Her eyes widened as the good feelings flowed into her. Then she smiled at him weakly and looked away again.

"Thanks," she muttered, not looking up from her shoes. She pulled her hand free, and Harry could see her shoulders sag a bit.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he asked.

"It's nothing," she said. "It's stupid."

"It's _not_ nothing," said Harry. "I can feel something's bothering you, and we might as well be honest with each other."

"I don't want to talk about it right now," she said. "I think I need a few minutes for myself to think about things if you don't mind."

Harry wanted to argue with her and make her tell him what was wrong, but Dumbledore had warned them about trying to be on good terms, so he reluctantly rose from the bed.

"If you need me, my room is just across the hall," he said.

"Okay," she muttered.

He hoped that she'd be okay. He couldn't imagine how this affected her emotionally, given that she–according to Ron at least–had a crush on him.

He entered his room and sat down on his bed. Suddenly, the weight of everything he had learned that morning came crashing down on him.

Somehow, he had entered a soul bond with no one else than Ginny Weasley–his best mate's sister–who had a crush on him. Then another thought hit him: if they were soul bonded, did that mean that Ginny was his soulmate?

There were so many questions he wanted answered. The biggest question of all was what this meant for their future. If this bond would really grow as strong as Dumbledore said it would, Harry thought that calling it a _complication_ was something of an understatement.

He looked toward his desk and his eyes fell on the birthday cards. He went over and picked them up, arranging them on the shelf above his desk.

He thought of his friends, Ron and Hermione. Dumbledore had told him and Ginny to keep the bond a secret, but he wondered if they would be able to keep it from them for long. Hermione was very perceptive, and would probably figure it out sooner or later, no matter how hard they tried; and Ron was bound to ask questions about why Ginny was staying with him.

On the other hand, he wanted them to know; at least Ron. He might not take the fact that Harry shared a soul bond with his sister very well.

Finally deciding that whatever happened would happen and that he'd deal with it when it did, he looked around the room to find something to do. His eyes fell on the Broomstick Servicing Kit.

Harry took out his Nimbus 2000 from the closet and opened the servicing kit to retrieve the Handbook on Do-It-Yourself Broomcare; he opened Chapter One.

Harold Waterbury's Handbook  
on Do-It-Yourself Broomcare

**Chapter One: The Importance of Having a Clean  
Broomhandle.**

_The most common of the many things most broom riders overlook when it comes to their performance on the broomstick is to keep the Broomhandle clean._

Harry felt a little sceptic as to what a clean Broomhandle might do to increase his broom riding; at most he thought it might make his broom look better, but he decided to keep reading anyway.

_The handle is the most important part of the broomstick, since it controls the direction and acceleration charms. If your handle is covered in dirt, your hands won't achieve the optimal amount of contact necessary to accurately control your broom in more complex manoeuvres. This is also the reason why using gloves not specifically designed for usage with a broom is strongly discouraged (to learn more about gloves and the part they play in increasing the lifespan of your broom, see chapter five). _

_If your broom is very dirty, the first thing you should do is remove all dirt and loose particles with a suitable scouring charm._

Harry looked at his broom and noticed that it was indeed quite dirty. Since he was underage and couldn't use his wand, he decided a simple rag would have to do.

He went downstairs to Aunt Petunia's cleaning cupboard and grabbed an old used rag and proceeded to wet it under the bathroom tap.

When he returned to his room, he gently wiped the dust and grime off his broom and returned to the book for instructions on how to apply the polish.

He spent a good two hours on polishing his Broomhandle and trimming the tail twigs.

He had just clipped the final twig to the correct length and deemed the tail smooth when there was a small knock on his door.

"Come in," he called, and the door opened to reveal a red-faced Ginny. He could tell that she had been crying, but she seemed more relaxed and a little happier than before, so he decided not to mention it.

"Hey," he said. "Feeling better?"

"Yeah," she answered. "That's a beautiful broom you've got."

"Thanks," Harry answered.

There was an awkward silence again.

"You don't have to stand there, you know," Harry said finally.

"Right," she said. She closed the door behind her and sat down on the floor opposite him.

"You could try her some time if you want," Harry said. "The broom I mean."

"Really?" she asked.

"Sure," he said.

"That's very nice of you, Harry," she said. "Thanks." She gave him a genuine smile.

"You're welcome," he said, giving a smile back, making her blush and look down at her lap.

"Ginny?" he asked.

"Yes?" she replied.

"Do you-I mean, are you sure you're okay?"

"As good as I can be, considering the circumstances," she said.

"Good," he said. "I mean, I know this can't be easy for you–hell, it's not easy for me–but I think it is worse for you."

"Oh yeah? What makes you think that?" she asked, suddenly on the defensive.

"Well, Ron mentioned-"

"Ron?" she interrupted. "Tell me, what did my _dear_ brother say about me?"

Harry immediately regretted saying anything about Ron.

"Well, it's nothing, really," he said, repeating Ginny's earlier words.

"If my brother said something about me, I have a right to know it," she argued, folding her arms across her chest.

Harry recognised the trademark Weasley "I'm not backing down" stance, and knew that he was in trouble.

"He-he sort of mentioned something about you having a little crush on me." This time it was Harry's turn to look down at his lap. When he heard a sniff, he looked up again and was startled to see that Ginny had tears running wildly down her cheeks. Her face wasn't sad though–it was angry.

"Sorry," he muttered.

Ginny didn't reply. Instead, she shot up and stalked towards the door, fists clenched and muttering, "I'll kill him, I'll kill Ron."

Before Harry had the time to do anything, she had already left the room and slammed the door shut.

_Well, that went well,_ he thought. _It's not even been a day and she's already mad at me._

He repacked his Broomstick Servicing Kit and put it together with his broom, which didn't seem to look at all as good as it had mere moments ago.

Just then Uncle Vernon called from the foot of the stairs that lunch was ready.

Before he went down, he stopped by Ginny's door, but when he didn't get a reply after a few minutes of knocking, he went down by himself.

Dinner was a rather quiet affair. The Dursleys didn't mention Ginny's absence. Harry guessed that they were happy to have one less unwanted dinner guest.

When he had eaten his helping, Harry decided to take a walk outside to clear his head.

It was a beautiful summer's day, and the sky was clear blue. Harry went to the park and sat down under an old oak tree. He leaned against the thick trunk and closed his eyes, soaking up the sun.

He tried to relax, but there was a faint buzzing in this head and a slight pressure on his temples. He must be too far away from Ginny.

He did his best to ignore it, and about ten minutes later, he started to drift off.

_He could hear voices in the distance. Familiar voices, but he couldn't tell what they were saying. They were slowly drawing closer, whispering among each other and then..._

_**SPLASH!**_

Harry awoke with a start. He felt water running down his face and soaking his t-shirt. When he wiped his glasses off, he saw his fat, pig-like cousin, Dudley standing in front of him surrounded by his gang. They were all laughing and carried large water guns.

"Hello Potter," he said. "Thought you looked like you needed to cool down a little."

Harry fought to keep his temper in check. However much he wanted retaliation, he did not need another letter from the Ministry about doing underage magic.

He forced his anger back and glared at Dudley.

"I've been through some crazy stuff today Dudders, and I don't have the time to play your games," Harry said through gritted teeth, "and if you know what's good for you, you'll go away before I really lose my temper."

Dudley faltered a little, but recomposed himself quickly and turned towards his henchmen.

"Let's go boys," he said. As they left, Harry noticed that several of Dudley's friends looked quizzically between himself and Dudley as they passed.

Harry leant back against the tree again, letting the sun dry him.

Some time later, he figured he must have dozed off, because when he opened his eyes, the sun was low on the horizon and the air felt slightly chilly. He rose slowly from his sitting position and pulled at the back of his shirt to unstick it from his sweaty back.

He walked home slowly, looking around at the familiar houses and gardens he passed. He liked evening walks. They were peaceful and there weren't as many people scowling at him from their neatly manicured lawns.

When he arrived at the Dursleys' doorstep, the sky had already turned red. He entered the house and noticed that Dudley's shoes weren't in the hall. He must still be outside, vandalizing public property or something of the sort.

Harry removed his own shoes and climbed the stairs to the second floor. He allowed himself a bathroom visit before he went to Ginny's door and knocked lightly.

There was no answer this time either. He kept trying for about a minute before he gave up.

When he entered his own room, he went straight for the bed, undressed and climbed under the covers. The last thing he thought before he fell asleep was that, of all the gifts he'd got for his birthday, Ginny Weasley was the least expected.


	2. A Turning of Tables

**Chapter Two**

**A Turning of Tables**

_The grass was soft behind his back and the bright light from the sky above shone through his eyelids, tingeing the darkness slightly red._

_He didn't know how long he had been lying there, neither did he care. He simply enjoyed listening to the sounds of the leaves rustling in the wind and the birds singing in the trees. It was a nice change from the constant flurry of activity in The Burrow._

_Here he was safe from pranks played on him by the twins and the endless chores assigned by Mrs Weasley._

_There was the faint sound of voices in the distance, but they seemed to come progressively closer. He could hear Ron's voice calling to the twins. From the sound of it, they were on their way toward the orchard for a game of Quidditch._

_He considered briefly asking if he could join them, but he knew they would never let him, so he stayed where he was._

_About ten minutes later, he started to get bored, so he sat up and picked up the book that lay beside him. It was about a girl who had found an injured unicorn and nursed it back to health, and it was quite boring. It had been given to him by his mother, who had assured him that he would love it just as much as she had when she was a little girl. If that was the case, she hadn't liked it much. He didn't have the heart to tell her that it was the most boring thing he had ever read and that he would rather play Quidditch with the boys though, so he faithfully..._

_**EEK EEK EEK EEK**_

Harry was rudely woken by the insistent ringing of his alarm clock. He reached out to shut it off, but all he managed to do was knock it to the floor. It hit the ground with a resounding crash and promptly went quiet. He'd probably have to pick it up in pieces.

A sudden intake of breath drew his attention and he almost fell out of his bed as he rolled over to see someone sitting at his desk.

"Ginny," he almost yelled, but caught himself at the last second, "what are you doing here?"

Ginny herself actually _had_ fallen off the chair and was now lying on the floor apologising repeatedly and cursing her own stupidity. Harry knew he had every reason to be angry with her, but looking at her, he didn't know if he wanted to laugh at her attempts to get up from under the fallen chair or if he simply felt sorry for her.

"It's okay, you know," he said finally, trying to adopt a stern voice despite his tiredness. "I won't yell at you, but I would really like to know what you are doing in my room."

At this, Ginny sprang up from the floor and snatched up a piece of parchment from his desk, hesitated for a second, and then proceeded to scrunch it up in her fist. When the piece of parchment was nothing more than a small ball, she hesitated again; then she spoke.

"I wanted to apologise to you for yelling at you earlier, but you weren't here. I decided to write you a note, but I guess I must have fallen asleep..."

"Okay," he said after an awkward silence. "Well, if you could perhaps go to your room for a while and let me get dressed. Then we could meet downstairs?"

"Of course," she said, quickly tossing the ball of parchment in the trash and scurrying out of the room.

Harry rose slowly and got out of bed. He pulled on the same clothes he had used yesterday. It wasn't like he had much to change into anyway. The Dursleys had stopped giving him Dudley's old clothes when he began Hogwarts, and the only clothes he had that he liked were his Hogwarts robes. For some reason, he didn't think the Dursleys would approve of him wearing them in their house.

When he was dressed, he went over to Hedwig's empty cage and picked up her water bowl on his way to the bathroom. He refilled the bowl and returned to his room. As he put the bowl back in the cage, a letter on his desk drew his attention–or rather the distinct green ink and Hogwarts seal on it.

Deciding it might be good to open it, he snatched the letter from the desk and ripped it open. There were three pieces of parchment inside. He pulled out the first one.

_Dear Mr Potter,_

_Please note that the new school year will begin on September the first. The Hogwarts Express will leave from King's Cross station, platform nine and three-quarters, at eleven o'clock._

_Third years are permitted to visit the village of Hogsmeade on certain weekends. Please give the enclosed permission form to your parent or guardian to sign._

_A list of books for next year is enclosed._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Professor M. McGonagall_

_Deputy Headmistress_

Harry pulled out the form and read through it, wondering how on earth he would get his aunt or uncle to sign it.

He took out the book list next. As he read through it, Hagrid's choice of birthday present suddenly made perfect sense.

_THIRD YEAR STUDENTS WILL REQUIRE:_

_-CORE SUBJECTS-_

_DEFENCE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS:  
The Essential Defence Against the Dark Arts by Arsenius Jigger_

_CHARMS:  
The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Three by Miranda Goshawk_

_TRANSFIGURATION:  
Intermediate Transfiguration by Emeric Switch_

_-ELECTIVES-_

_CARE OF MAGICAL CREATURES:  
The Monster Book of __Monsters by Edwardius__ Lima_

_DIVINATION:  
Unfogging the Future by Cassandra Vablatsky_

He glanced toward the tied-up pillowcase beside him. Then he put all the pages back in the envelope except the permission form, which he put on top of it. Then he went down to the kitchen.

When he entered the kitchen, Ginny hadn't arrived yet, so he pulled out a frying pan and started preparing breakfast.

Just as the butter in the pan had melted, Ginny came down the stairs. She had switched the t-shirt and pants of yesterday for a simple, light green summer dress.

"Good morning again," he greeted her as she walked up to him.

"Hello," she answered, sounding much more tired than before. "What time is it, Harry?" she asked. "I'm still tired."

"Around half past six, I'd guess," Harry replied.

"So early? Why are we in the kitchen at half past six in the morning on a weekend?" she asked incredulously.

"Breakfast," he answered simply.

"I can see that," she said defensively, "but why so early?"

Harry paused for a moment.

"Well, we usually eat breakfast this early," he said.

Ginny looked at him strangely, and Harry got the distinct impression that she wanted to ask him something, but at that moment Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen.

Vernon completely ignored them as he went to his seat at the table and started reading that morning's paper.

With the ease of a person who had done it many times before, Harry cracked two eggs into the frying pan. He then turned back to Ginny, who was looking around the kitchen with a lost look on her face.

"Do you want any help?" she asked when she noticed him observing her.

"Yeah..." he said slowly, turning his mind over for something she could do. He realised Ginny probably had no idea of how to use any of the appliances in a Muggle kitchen. He decided to start with something simple.

"If you look in the freezer–that's the lower door on the large white cabinet over there–you should find a pack of bacon. It needs to be defrosted in the microwave before we can fry it." When Ginny looked at him like he had just spoken a different language, he added, "I'll guide you through the steps, don't worry." He gave her a confident smile as an extra reassurance.

Ginny walked over to the fridge/freezer combo and opened the door gently, as if she was afraid something would be jumping out at her at any moment.

"On second thought, bring two packs," Harry called to her, thinking of Dudley and how he would usually eat almost a whole package by himself on the mornings after being out all night.

After a lot of rummaging, Ginny returned with two packs of frozen bacon in her hand. Harry directed her to the microwave and instructed methodically how to set it to defrost. After ten minutes, the bacon was ready just as the eggs were done.

"Do you know how to fry bacon?" Harry asked her.

"I think so," she replied, somehow both insecure and confident at the same time.

Harry unloaded the last of the eggs onto the plate and explained briefly how to use the Muggle stove. He then made his way around the kitchen, collecting plates, glasses and cutlery as he went.

As he set the table, he shot the occasional glance in Ginny's direction, but she seemed to be doing just fine. He guessed that she had picked up some tips from watching her mother.

When the table was set, Harry went on to toast the bread.

"So that's what those are used for!" Ginny exclaimed rather too loud when he put four slices of bread in the toaster. He could hear Vernon grunting something under his breath and rustling the paper.

"My dad has a couple of those in his shed," she continued, "but he never figured out what they are used for."

"Well, now you can tell him," Harry said, smiling fondly. From the first time he had met Mr Weasley, he had been bombarded with questions about Muggles, and even though the Weasley children often seemed to think their father's interest was somewhat embarrassing, Harry genuinely liked Mr Weasley.

Harry and Ginny were almost ready with the breakfast when Aunt Petunia entered the kitchen. She tried to ignore them too, but Harry noticed her shooting a disgusted look at Ginny before taking her place beside Vernon at the table.

Harry and Ginny finished the preparations, put the plates of food on the table and sat down themselves.

• • •

All in all, breakfast was rather pleasant, thought Harry. His aunt and uncle mostly ignored him, so he got the chance to snatch a bit more food than he usually did, and best of all, he had a friend to talk to. If it weren't for the occasional disapproving look from either his aunt or uncle, it would have been like Harry imagined a normal family breakfast would be.

Harry and Ginny didn't let themselves be intimidated though. They kept a lighthearted conversation going between themselves–mostly about Quidditch.

"The incompetence of these so-called journalists will never cease to amaze me," growled Uncle Vernon suddenly. "You know what they did this time?" he put the paper flat on the table and turned it to Aunt Petunia. From where Harry sat, he could see that the article covered the whole page, but the angle made it impossible for him to read even the bold headline.

"They have devoted this whole page to this escaped prisoner, but they fail to tell us neither when nor from where the man escaped. The only usable information is that he was apparently arrested for the murder of thirteen people and sentenced to life imprisonment twelve years ago."

"Did they at least give a name?" Aunt Petunia asked.

"Yeah, it was, um..." he scanned the article, "yes, Sirius Black."

Suddenly, Ginny gave a muffled squeal beside him and dropped her toast in her yoghurt. Her face had gone nearly as white as a ghost's.

"I-I'm sorry, I'll just... I just have to use the bathroom," she stammered, and before anyone had the chance to get any the wiser, she was out of the room and on her way up the stairs.

Knowing full well that she didn't need to use the bathroom at all, Harry left his food and went after her.

• • •

Harry didn't have to wait long to be let in after knocking on Ginny's door. Ginny was still rather pale, but seemed to have at least calmed down a bit.

"What was all that about?" Harry demanded as he entered the room. Ginny shook her head as if to clear it.

"Come in Harry, and I'll tell you," she said.

As the room lacked any good sitting places designed for more than one person at a time, they both sat down on the bed. Ginny took a few deep breaths and then began to tell him.

"Sirius Black was a big supporter of You-Know-Who. They say he was one of his most faithful servants. As your uncle said, he was sentenced to Azkaban–the wizard prison–after killing thirteen people: twelve Muggles and one wizard. It was just after You-Know-Who disappeared. They say he was after information on You-Know-Who's whereabouts. He cornered some wizard on a Muggle street, and when he couldn't tell Black what he wanted to know, he blew up the entire street and killed everyone there."

Harry didn't know what to say to that. This was clearly a madman, and if he was loose on the streets...

"That... sounds pretty bad," said Harry finally.

"Yeah," Ginny agreed.

They sat in silence for a while, each lost in their own thoughts. Then, just as Harry was about to ask Ginny more about the Wizarding prison, he heard footsteps moving through the hallway outside, followed by a large bang as Dudley hit Harry's door on his way downstairs–something he usually did whenever he walked by; especially in the mornings.

"What was that?" Ginny asked, startled from her reveries.

"Nothing," Harry replied, "just Dudley. Are you still hungry? I want to finish my breakfast before Dudley finishes it for me."

"No, I'm okay," she said, but she smiled at him, so Harry figured it would be okay to leave her alone for a little while.

As he went out into the hall, he remembered his permission form lying on his desk. He went into his room and put it in his pocket. He wanted to at least try to get it signed. It would be nice to go to the village.

• • •

When Harry arrived back in the kitchen, Dudley was already stuffing his face with food, and his uncle had gone back to silently reading his paper. Aunt Petunia was nowhere to be found.

Nobody said a word as Harry took his place at the table and continued eating. This was fine with Harry. He didn't want to talk to them anyway.

Harry ate his food quickly as he didn't want to leave Ginny alone for too long. Not that he thought she couldn't handle herself, but he guessed she didn't want to be by herself in an unknown house for too long; especially not in this house.

Just as he was done, Uncle Vernon rose from the table, apparently just having finished himself.

"I'm off to pick up Marge at the station," he said, stealing a glance at his wristwatch.

"Wait!" Harry nearly shouted as he followed his uncle into the hallway. "Do you think maybe, I mean-" he stammered, "the thing is, third years at Hog- at my school are allowed to visit the nearby village at certain weekends, and I wondered if maybe you could sign my permission form?" Harry put on his best innocent face. Vernon, on the other hand, wore an expression of mixed amusement and outrage.

"I will never sign anything that _school_ gives you," he said after a few tense moments.

Harry was not surprised by this answer, but he had been living with his relatives long enough to learn a few tricks on how to bend them to his will–even if he was not quite as good at it as Dudley was.

"You realise then that I won't be able to guarantee that I won't be letting something slip to Aunt Marge?" Harry replied calmly.

"You wouldn't dare," growled Uncle Vernon.

"Oh, I would," retorted Harry. He had long since stopped being afraid of his uncle. "Unless you agree to sign my form."

Harry's uncle was getting redder in the face by the second, but finally he said, "If you promise to behave, and keep any mention of your... _unnaturalness _far away from Marge... then… I will sign your bloody permission form."

Harry grinned at his uncle, which only made the man's jaw clench even tighter and his face grow an even darker shade of red. He poked his index finger hard into Harry's chest and stared at him menacingly. "And if I see one _single_ bit of ma- you-know-what, the deal is off," he growled.

"Deal," said Harry, offering his hand, but Vernon ignored it and walked over to the clothes hanger and pulled down his coat. Recognising the obvious dismissal for what it was, Harry went back upstairs.

He found Ginny where he had left her. She was sitting on her bed, seemingly deep in thought.

"What's up?" Harry asked as he entered the room. Ginny's head snapped up from where it had rested in her hands, a startled look on her face.

"Anything wrong?" Harry inquired.

"No," Ginny denied, but Harry could tell that there was something bothering her, and it was not only from the way she was acting; he could almost _feel_ that something was wrong. He didn't say anything though. Instead, he simply went and sat down next to her again.

There was an awkward silence between them. Harry knew that they had a lot to talk about still. There was not only the problem of who to tell, or even what to tell them, but they also had to discuss their own feelings about the bond and how it might impact their future.

To tell the truth, Harry was a lot calmer about the situation than he would have imagined. He would have thought that if someone told him he would be irrevocably bound to his best friend's sister, he would just lose it and freak out, but the only thing he felt was a lot of fear. He was afraid of what this might mean for him and Ginny if Voldemort suddenly found a way to come back. He had already tried twice, and both times had nearly resulted in Harry's death. He didn't want to think about what would happen if Voldemort went after him now.

In his first year at Hogwarts, one of the teachers had been trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone–a stone used to produce the Elixir of Life–which was hidden within the school. Harry, Ron and Hermione had followed him and stopped him, but it almost cost Harry his life.

During his second year, a memory of Voldemort that had been hidden in a diary for fifty years had possessed Ginny and made her open the Chamber of Secrets, releasing a basilisk that was supposed to kill every student who was not a pureblood. Luckily, nobody died, but quite a few people got petrified–Hermione among them.

At the end of the year, Ginny was taken down to the Chamber itself, and Harry and Ron went after her. They got separated by a cave-in, but Harry finally reached Ginny and managed to save her life by slaying the basilisk and driving one of its fangs through the diary, destroying the memory of Voldemort who had been possessing Ginny and feeding off her soul. This was the event that Dumbledore now said had forged this bond between them.

Harry looked sideways at Ginny, who had returned to sitting with her face resting in her palms. As he looked at her, he came to a sudden and disturbing realisation. Harry had come face to face with Voldemort twice already–three times if you counted the attack that killed his parents and gave him the scar–therefore he knew how terrifying the man could be, and Ginny had been possessed by him for almost a year. Harry felt ashamed of himself for not thinking of this sooner, because from the looks of things, she wasn't handling herself very well.

"It's not your fault, you know," he said finally. Ginny turned her head slowly and looked at him. Her eyes were shining with as of yet unshed tears, but she didn't say anything.

"It's Voldemort's fault," he continued. "It's always been Voldemort's fault."

Harry took a deep breath, closed his eyes and lay back on the bed before resuming his monologue. He could hear a sniff coming from Ginny's direction.

"I know what Voldemort is like," he said. "I know what you are going through, and I will be here if you want to talk."

There were more sniffs from Ginny, and Harry assumed that she had finally cracked.

"No, you don't," she croaked in a small voice. If it hadn't been dead quiet in the room, Harry doubted he would have heard her. She drew a noisy breath and continued, "You don't know what it's like to have him controlling your life for a year."

Ginny was right, Harry realised. He didn't know that, but he still wanted to help her.

"Tell me," he said. "How was it to be possessed by Voldemort?"

The bed shifted under him as Ginny moved and Harry opened his eyes to find her looking at him with something akin to shock and surprise. When she remained silent, Harry continued, "I think you need to talk about it. I won't force you to do it, but I want you to know that I'll understand." She simply nodded.

Neither one moved for a long time. They just sat there, looking at each other. Harry noticed that her eyes were still shining with the tears from before, but her lips formed a vague smile, so he guessed everything would be okay.

The sudden noise of the front door opening and people talking downstairs broke the silence, and just as Harry expected, the impatient voice of Uncle Vernon sounded its customary homecoming serenade.

"BOY! Come down here and help carry your aunt's things in from the car!"

No sooner had he stopped speaking, before Marge added her two cents in a booming voice.

"You still have that menace here, Vernon?" she asked her brother. "I do hope he keeps himself useful. Personally, I don't know why you even kept him. Would have sent him straight to the orphanage if it were me."

Harry, who was already halfway to the door, knew that Ginny would want to talk to him about how he was treated, but he didn't really look forward to that conversation, so he hurried out of the door, ignoring Ginny's stern expression.

• • •

When he arrived in the hallway, he found his way blocked by the broad figure of Aunt Marge, who got a look on her face that wouldn't look out of place on a predator who had just spotted especially juicy prey. Apparently wanting to delay any confrontation until later, Vernon grunted, "The bags are in the car, get a move on. They won't carry themselves to the guest room."

Suppressing a grin at the thought that–if he was allowed to do magic–he would be able to make the bags do just that, Harry went outside to the car.

The moment he opened the trunk of the car, he was welcomed by Ripper, Marge's favourite dog, who seemed to hate Harry at least as much as his owner. Vernon's sister bred bulldogs for a living, and Harry idly wondered if "hating Harry" was part of her dog training programme. If so, Ripper probably got top marks.

He grabbed two of the three large suitcases and opened Ripper's cage. The moment it opened, the dog leapt at Harry, who instinctively blocked the oncoming mutt with a suitcase. Ripper's nose impacted the hard surface with a satisfying crunch.

He arrived back in the hallway with a whining Ripper trailing after him. The sound of her beloved dog in obvious pain immediately drew the attention of Marge.

"Vernon!" she said, "Didn't I tell you that I don't trust him around my little Rippy?" then she turned on Harry, "You!" she said, in a voice remarkably similar to her brother's; she even pointed her finger at him the same way, "I'll keep my eye on you. And don't you dare come near my dog again!"

Harry just glared back at her, but didn't respond. Instead, he turned and went to fetch the remaining suitcase.

When he returned to the hallway, Marge had Dudley in a hug so tight that Harry found himself half hoping that Dudley would suffocate. The boy was grinning over his aunt's shoulder, and if Harry hadn't known better, he would have thought that his cousin actually enjoyed the hug, but Harry knew that he was well paid for it, and sure enough, when they broke apart, He wasn't surprised to see him clutching a crisp twenty pound note in his fat fist.

"I do love to see a healthy sized boy," Marge said, looking at Dudley proudly. "This one," she continued, rounding on Harry, "would do well to take a leaf out of Dudder's book."

Harry bit back a reply about Dudley not having any books to take leafs from and instead brushed past her without a word, heading for the stairs. As he climbed up to the second floor, he heard Vernon inviting Marge for some tea. When Marge suggested that Ripper could have some tea out of her saucer, Harry briefly reflected that Petunia's ridiculously strong tea would probably not be very good for a dog's health. He found that he didn't care the least.

"I'll be right back. I'll have to talk to the boy," he heard Vernon say from downstairs, and he suddenly realised that Marge would have the room Ginny was staying in.

"It appears we have a problem," Harry said the moment he entered the guest room, cutting Ginny off before she had the chance to say anything. She looked at him annoyed, but didn't say anything other than "what?" though she said it in a rather irritated tone. Harry didn't have time to explain though because, at that moment, Vernon busted into the room.

"We need to set a few rules," he growled in a whisper, evidently hoping that his words wouldn't carry downstairs. "First of all, Marge doesn't know that _you_," he shot a stern glance at Ginny, "are staying here, and I want to keep it that way. You make sure you stay out of her way at all times. Second, Marge will stay in this room, so you can clear out your things right now. Third," he looked back at Harry again, "we have told Marge that you go to St. Brutus's Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys."

"What?" exclaimed Harry. He glanced at Ginny, who looked even more annoyed than he was.

"And you'll be sticking to that story," said Uncle Vernon, barely able to keep his voice down.

Harry fought to keep his temper under control. With all these rules, not to mention the presence of Aunt Marge, this seemed to be one of the worst summers yet, despite the fact that he now had Ginny to accompany him.

"Where will Ginny sleep then?" he asked, suddenly remembering.

"Not my problem," his uncle spat nastily. "Should have thought about that before you went and got yourself bonded, shouldn't you?

Harry nearly exploded. He bloody well saved Ginny's life! Vernon made this sound like they had one day just decided, _let's get bonded forever! Hey, wouldn't that be a laugh?_

If he hadn't saved her, she would be dead or worse, and now Vernon was making her stay hidden in her room like some prisoner in a cell!

"I can't bloody believe him!" Harry yelled after Vernon had closed the door behind him with a resounding bang. "I save your life, we get forced into this bond against our will, and he locks you in your room as if you did something wrong!" Harry didn't notice a vase on the table starting to crack. "In fact, you don't even have a room anymore," he added, making the vase explode violently, sending shards of china flying across the room. Startled by the sound, Harry forced himself to calm down to prevent himself from doing even worse accidental magic.

He sat down on the bed beside Ginny–who, he noticed, was fighting to keep from exploding herself–and put his face in his hands, drawing deep breaths. "Sorry," he mumbled. "I don't care if he insults me, I can handle it, but when he starts on my friends..." he couldn't finish the sentence, but he didn't really need to.

"I know," Ginny said through gritted teeth. "And don't think I don't feel the same when he starts on you."

"Sorry," he said again. "I'll remember that."

"Make sure you do," she replied.

Harry got up and started gathering the pieces of broken vase scattered around the room.

"You might as well pack my quills and ink while you're at it," Ginny said. "I'll start taking my books down from the shelves."

All right," Harry agreed, "we'll put your stuff in my room for now."

"Okay," she consented.

• • •

When they had moved all of Ginny's things into Harry's room, Harry went downstairs to greet Aunt Marge, or as Harry preferred to think of it, report for the first of Aunt Marge's obligatory daily "Insult Harry Potter" sessions.

"Do something about your hair," was the way Uncle Vernon welcomed him when he entered the kitchen. This, of course, alerted Aunt Marge to his presence, and she wasted no time in both berating him for taking too long to unpack her things and to blame his parents for his slow nature.

"What were you doing up there anyway?" She asked when Harry failed to respond to her taunting of his heritage in a satisfactory manner. "I heard something breaking. I do hope that wasn't my perfume. I paid a good bit of money for it, you know, and if I see you broke it, I'll make sure you pay every single penny for it."

Harry seriously doubted that Marge's perfume was really as expensive as she made it out to be. He knew that, if Marge could find any way to make Harry do more work, she would seize the opportunity without blinking. He didn't rise to her baiting though. He knew that his best chance to get his Hogsmeade permission form signed was to keep himself from arguing with the woman, so he kept focusing on getting back upstairs to Ginny.

"No, it wasn't," he said plainly, responding to Marge's query as to what had broken upstairs. Marge looked at him as if she didn't believe him, but didn't press the issue any further.

Harry sat down at the table and poured himself a small cup of tea. He didn't dare drink it though. Around him, the Dursleys kept up a constant stream of conversation, but Harry didn't join in. Instead, he found himself spending the time thinking of Ginny and their conversation earlier that day. He had wanted to talk to her, but had no idea of what to say. At least he had told her that he was there for her if she needed him. That was a beginning, at least.

Deciding that he had enough of the Dursleys for today, and that it would be fun to play a prank on Ginny, he filled up his teacup, grabbed a few biscuits from a tray and rose from the table. Nobody made any protest when he left the room, and Harry wasn't even sure anyone had noticed.

When he opened the door to his room, he found himself stopping on the threshold. Something had happened here. Someone had _cleaned_ his room, and there was only one person who could have done it.

"Are you sure you can't use magic out of school?" he asked finally.

Ginny, who was sitting on Harry's bed, reading a magazine, looked up at him and smiled. "Yes. Just a few tricks Mum taught me," she replied, "and besides, I still had some anger I had to work off.

"Well, thanks," he said, taking a step into the room. "I brought you some tea," he said unnecessarily, presenting the tea and fistful of biscuits he held in his hands.

"Thanks," she said.

Harry put the cup and accompanying baked goods on his now clean desk while Ginny got up and sat on the chair. Harry took her place on the bed.

"Really, thanks for cleaning this mess up," he said. "I just tend to leave stuff where it's most convenient at the time."

"It was nothing," she answered, smiling. "It wasn't that messy anyway, she continued, and then she took a sip from the cup. At once, her smile was replaced with a frown.

"What did you do to this?" she asked him when he started laughing at her.

"Nothing, I swear," Harry answered. "That's the reason Aunt Petunia usually asks me to make the tea. I have no idea of how she does it really, but it always comes out very strong and bitter."

Ginny raised an eyebrow at him. "Tell me, Harry," she said getting suddenly serious. "Does she really _ask_ you to make the tea or does she _order_ you to do it?

Harry felt quite uncomfortable under her scrutinizing gaze. It was a little scary how much she reminded him of her mother just now.

"Okay," he said finally. "She never asked me for anything, but I'm happy to make the tea. Spares me from Aunt Petunia's horrible brews," he added.

"Still," she said with distaste. "I don't like the way they treat you, Harry. Have they always been like this?"

"No," he replied. "They've usually only been like this whenever I did accidental magic. I think they are being like this now because they know that, if we are treated poorly, your family will come and pick us up."

"Yeah, I have half a mind to write them right now," she said. "Honestly, Harry. They treat you like you're their house-elf, not their nephew. Why didn't you tell anybody how bad it was?" She looked at him with concern etched on her face.

"Don't know," he replied. "Didn't want to burden anyone, I guess. Besides, I'm used to it by now."

"You shouldn't be," she said. "Nobody should be treated like you have been and say that they're used to it."

"Sorry," he began, but Ginny cut him off.

"No," she spat, "don't you dare say you're sorry, Harry. It's _them_ who should be sorry. They should be sorry for never giving you any Christmas presents, or even celebrate your birthday-"

"How did you-" Harry interjected, but she cut him off.

"Ron told me about the Christmas presents," she said, "and I knew it was your birthday yesterday, but I saw no indication whatsoever of them recognising it. Someone should teach them a lesson," she finished.

"Yes," Harry agreed. He felt a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach when Ginny defended him. It was pride, mixed with something else that he couldn't readily define. It was a good feeling though. "What could we do?" he asked. "We're not allowed to use magic during the holidays."

"No," she agreed, "that is a problem. I could ask Fred and George though," she mused. "If you need to prank someone, they're the two people you want to talk to first."

Harry agreed wholeheartedly. Fred and George Weasley–Ron and Ginny's older twin brothers–were about to start their fifth year at Hogwarts, and were well known among both the staff and the students for being the school pranksters-in-chief.

"I used Hedwig to send a letter home yesterday when you were outside though, so we'll have to wait for her to come back," she continued. "Don't worry, I told them everything was fine," she said when she noticed Harry's concerned expression.

"Well, we could write the letter while we wait," Harry suggested.

• • •

_Dear Fred and George,_

_We don't know how much Mum and Dad have told you about why I'm staying with Harry, but we don't want to go into it in a letter. We promise to tell you more about it when we return to The Burrow. All you need to know is that they are treating him horribly and someone will need to teach them a lesson._

_As we are both underage and not allowed to do magic, and Harry's potions kit is locked away in a cupboard, we thought we'd ask my favourite pranking brothers if they had any idea of what to do._

_Much love,_

_Harry and Ginny_

_PS. Don't tell Mum and Dad about this. If they knew how Harry is treated, they would come and pick us up, but we don't want them to do that yet. Harry's uncle is refusing to sign Harry's Hogsmeade permission form until a week from now, and we also want some time to play a good prank on them before Mum "rescues" us._

_PPS. We have enclosed a note for Mum too. Make sure Hedwig delivers it this evening. Around dinnertime could work._

"That's not bad," Harry said after reading through the letter. They had spent about two hours drafting and writing it.

"We've got another letter to The Burrow, Hedwig," he said to his owl, letting her out of her cage. She had returned an hour earlier, carrying a short note from Mrs Weasley, confirming that she had got the letter Ginny sent the day before and prompting them to tell her of any new developments. In their answer they had only told her that Aunt Marge had arrived and that there had been no complications whatsoever.

"I want you to deliver this directly to Fred and George's room," he told his owl. "Let nobody else see you."

Hedwig nibbled his finger affectionately, which Harry took as an affirmative.

He tied the letter to her leg and opened the window. Hedwig promptly jumped out and began her trip back to the Burrow.

"I hope that they have some good ideas," Ginny said.

"Me too," replied Harry.

• • •

The rest of the day was spent in Harry's room, where Harry took it upon himself to teach Ginny about Muggle technology. She proved to be an eager student, and soaked up everything he told her; at least until she discovered the desk lamp and spent a good twenty minutes by his desk, just turning the lamp on and off. It wasn't until Harry found some of Dudley's old discarded board games that he got her attention again. Luckily, unlike most of Dudley's old things, the games had never been used, and most of them even had the plastic wrapping on the box still intact.

As Harry had never had anyone to play any Muggle games with, they learned together, though Harry's knowledge of how Muggle money worked gave him a definite advantage in _Monopoly._

It wasn't until late that afternoon that they were forced to deal with another issue: sleeping arrangements.

Since Harry had no idea if the Dursleys even had a camp bed–and he guessed that, if they did, they wouldn't lend it out–Harry and Ginny decided that the best option under the current circumstances would be to sleep head to toe in Harry's bed.

Harry followed her to the bathroom and waited outside the door as a lookout, making sure that Marge didn't see anything she wasn't supposed to.

When she was done, he followed her back to his room–or _their_ room, as it were–and then returned to the bathroom to perform his own evening ritual.

By the time he arrived in the bedroom again, Ginny had already changed and got under the covers. At his prompt, she closed her eyes, allowing Harry to change too. He fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

• • •

_Harry followed his mother and four of his brothers into King's Cross Station. He clung tightly to his mother's hand as he tried to fight back the fear. He didn't want them to leave yet. It felt like they had only just come back for the summer, and now they were going to leave him all over again. It wasn't fair! Even Ron was going, and he would be all alone until Christmas. Perhaps 'alone' was a bit of a strong word, but his Mum was often busy with other things during the day when his father was at work, and mostly, he would end up spending time with Ron._

"_And it's packed with Muggles, of course," his mother grunted when a boy made a rather loud comment to his mother about whether it was normal to keep an owl as a pet._

"_Now, what's the platform number?" she asked. Harry knew that she hadn't really forgotten and it was probably just out of habit, but he answered anyway._

"_Nine and three quarters," he said, and then continued, "Mum, can't I go?"_

"_You're not old enough Ginny," she said dismissively, "now be quiet. All right, Percy, you go first."_

_He watched as Percy straightened himself importantly and strode purposefully towards the barrier between platforms nine and ten._

"_Fred, you next," she said, and Harry watched half amused as his twin brothers made their mother very confused about which of them actually __**was**__ Fred._

_All too soon they had both disappeared too, and it was only him and Ron left..._

"_Excuse me," said a boy suddenly. He had jet-black hair and green eyes that were framed by round glasses that had been broken and carelessly repaired with some kind of tape._

"_Hello, dear," answered his Mum. "First time at Hogwarts? Ron's new too," she gestured at Ron, who had just prepared to walk through the barrier himself._

"_Yes," answered the boy. "The thing is- the thing is, I don't know how to-"_

"_How to get onto the platform?" his mother supplied helpfully, and the boy nodded. His Mum instructed the stranger on how to get onto platform nine and three quarters and proposed that the boy go before Ron, which he did without a problem. Then Ron went through, followed closely by himself and their mother._

_They immediately set out to find the rest of the family, and Harry glanced at the train, thinking that the twins usually headed straight for the luggage car and hoped that he'd see them there, but the flash of red hair his eyes caught wasn't that of Fred or George. It was much longer and it was attached to a girl who looked both very scared and thoroughly confused. Her eyes were shooting this way and that, as if she was looking for something, or rather, running away._

_That's when Harry noticed the small black book she was clutching to her chest, and the moment he recognised just what book it was, he was flooded by memories. __**It was Tom Riddle's diary. It contained the memory of a sixteen year old boy by the name of Tom Riddle, the boy who would grow up and become known worldwide as the evil 'Dark Lord' Voldemort.**_

"_Ginny!" Harry yelled, running at her. She whipped around alarmingly fast, but somehow she managed to still keep her balance._

"_Harry!" she called back, "What are you doing here?"_

"_What are __**you**__ doing __**here**__?" he countered._

"_I don't know," she said, panicking, "but we need to get out of here! Tom is coming!"_

_At that moment, there was a loud hissing sound and out of nowhere, a basilisk the size of a train came slithering down the tracks. Ginny clung to Harry's arm as the crowd on the platform started to panic._

"_Harry," she whimpered, but he had no idea of what to do. He didn't have a sword this time. No Phoenix either. He didn't even have his wand._

_He felt helpless as the enormous snake came at them. The last one he had encountered couldn't have been this large, could it?_

"_I'll have you now," the basilisk hissed, and Harry was so surprised that he looked up without really thinking. Then his surprise grew as he met the monster's eyes. Normally, anyone who met the gaze of a basilisk dropped dead on the spot, but then again, this was no ordinary basilisk. Instead of the normal yellow eyes, this one had eyes of a deep blood red, and its voice when it spoke, even though it was Parseltongue, was clearly that of Tom Riddle._

"_You're mine, Ginevra Weasley," Basilisk Riddle continued, "and nothing can stop me. Least of all your precious __**Harry Potter**__." He spat the name out as if it was poison and then reared above them, poised to strike._

"_No!" Ginny cried, and Harry held her even tighter. He had no idea of what to do, but knew that he would never give Ginny over without a fight. He seized the book and started to pull out the pages, but to his surprise, the book got neither lighter nor thinner. No matter how many blank pages Harry scattered to the wind, nothing whatsoever happened to the book. It was as if the book generated a new page in another place in the book for every page he ripped out._

"_Foolish boy!" hissed Basilisk Riddle from above them. "You can't destroy it. Now __**I **__will destroy __**you**__, and then there will be nothing and no one left to stop me from taking little Ginevra's soul."_

"_I won't let you," Harry yelled defiantly, throwing the diary in the snake's face. "I won't let you have her!"_

"_You think you are so brave, Harry Potter," the snake replied in an almost casual way. "You think that just because you've succeeded in the past–on nothing but pure luck, I might add–nothing can touch you. Well, __**here's**__ a wake-up call for you!"_

_And then snake Riddle attacked, sinking his fangs into Harry's chest like hot knives through butter, and everything went black._

Harry awoke in a bath of sweat. He and Ginny had obviously been moving around quite a lot during the night, because they were almost lying on top of each other, and one or both of them had managed to kick the covers to the floor. Harry also found his pyjama sleeve had ridden up and his arm stuck quite well between Ginny's calves, causing their bare skin to meet–and just as before–direct skin contact also meant a direct and frightfully powerful transmission of feelings between them. Harry could clearly feel Ginny's distress, and suddenly remembered the reason he had woken up in the first place.

He pulled himself free, turned around so that he was facing the same direction as Ginny and proceeded to shake her shoulders lightly. She was trembling and whimpering silently, but if she said any words, Harry couldn't make them out.

"Ginny," he hissed in her ear, but she just gave a shudder and tried to roll away from him. He grabbed her roughly to prevent her from escaping and potentially fall off the bed and shook her with more force. Suddenly, she stilled as if all the muscles in her body had just decided to stop working. Harry released her and whispered to her again.

"Ginny? Are you okay?"

It hit him that he couldn't really have asked a more unnecessary question, but it was all he could think of just then.

"Ginny?" he prompted.

"Harry," she whispered back, and then she hugged him tightly. Initially, Harry was afraid that he would get a sudden burst of her emotions again, but it seemed that his pyjamas and her nightgown covered them both enough to prevent that. He slowly wrapped his arms around her too.

He had briefly considered trying to summon some good memories and attempt to send the good feelings to her like he had done yesterday, but decided against it. It would only postpone the problem. What she needed was to talk about it with someone.

"I'm here," he whispered finally. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Harry," she repeated, letting out a small sob. "You... you died."

This confirmed something that Harry had suspected. Somehow, they had shared dreams–or at least part of one dream.

"I'm not dead," he said. "I'm right here. It was just a dream." He squeezed her a little to reassure her, and then gave her a few minutes to compose herself. When she had stopped shaking, he asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"

Ginny was quiet for a long time, and Harry thought that she might have fallen asleep, but then she spoke and, still holding her in a protective embrace, Harry listened.

"It all started in the Chamber, as it usually does. I was lying on the floor, and Tom stood leaning over me. He told me that I shouldn't attempt to refuse him. He said that together, we could become even more powerful than Dumbledore himself. I told him to bugger off. I pushed him away, and I think I must have taken him by surprise, because he fell over. Then I grabbed the diary and got to my feet. I ran for the exit, but it was closed, and wouldn't open, and when I looked back, Tom was transforming into a giant snake. That's when I saw a small door in one of the corners. I ran for it, and I think I closed the door behind me just before Tom managed to get through." She paused for a moment. "Turns out it led to platform nine and three quarters at King's Cross," she said.

"Yeah, I know this part," Harry said. "I came running at you, and-"

"How did you know?" she interjected.

"I was there," he said. "I dreamt it too. First I was dreaming about when we first met, before I was going to my first year at Hogwarts, and then I saw you coming out of the train clutching the diary." He left out the detail about him dreaming their meeting from Ginny's point of view. He wasn't sure how she would respond to that news just now. It would have to wait until tomorrow.

"But how?" she asked. Harry could tell that she wasn't asking him specifically, but he decided to answer anyway.

"I think it has something to do with the bond," Harry guessed. "When I woke up, my arm was trapped by your legs, and I think you remember what happened the last time we touched.

She nodded. "Makes sense," she said.

"You think you're able to go back to sleep?" Harry asked.

"Yes, I think so," she replied, but when Harry started disentangling himself from her, she clung to him tightly. When he looked at her questioningly, she blushed and whispered, "Do you think you can hold me? Just tonight?"

Harry didn't have the heart to refuse her, and if he was honest with himself, he needed a little comfort too.

• • •

Harry and Ginny slept the rest of the night dreamlessly, and the next morning began in a similar manner to the one before, with the exception of Harry not being surprised to find Ginny in his room–or even in his arms–when he woke up.

They took turns in going to the bathroom while the other changed, and then Harry went down to make breakfast. Ginny stayed in Harry's room in the meantime so as to avoid Marge.

As he cooked, Harry tried to come up with a way to sneak some food up to Ginny without Marge noticing. Finally, he fetched a plastic bag from a drawer and hid it under his shirt, sneaking various foods into it as he cooked them.

After enduring another one of the Dursleys' boring breakfasts, complete with dreary conversation topics, spiced only with the occasional verbal insult from Marge directed at himself, Harry returned to his room to find Ginny sitting by the desk, reading a letter.

"Fred and George's reply just arrived!" she told him excitedly, thrusting the letter at him.

_Dear Ginny and Harry_

_Good thing you confronted us with this problem. We're obviously perfect for this job, no bragging. Oh, and thank you for all your love, Harry. How did you know that's all we ever wanted? I had to stop Fred from crying after reading your letter, you know.  
Ouch! Fred, don't hit me, I'm writing! Now look what you did!_

_However, we hope to see you back at the Burrow soon. Percy the perfect Prefect seems to think he's our boss now, and we could need you to put him back in his place._

_To say something referring to your problem: It's everything but easy to analyse your possibilities from here. Some more information like who you want to prank and what their known weaknesses and preferences are would help with that. But of course we can give the two of you some general advice on how to prank the Muggle way:_

_1\. Use everything you see! Got a paper clip and a ballpoint pen refill? Perfect! Make use of the paperclip to attach the refill to someone's shoe. Best would be a high heel so that you can hide the refill behind the heel. Now your target has self-colouring shoes and Harry's Aunt Begonia or-whatever-her-name-is will rage! Also watch what the room gives you. The best pranks are those which require the least resources._

_2\. Use the element of surprise! Pull your prank when nobody would expect it. Can everybody see what you're doing? That's a perfect moment to pull a prank, because they will think they would be safe. Take dinner for example! You can do so much funny stuff with your neighbour's food when they don't watch it!_

_3\. Try to prank as many people as possible. Or at least as many people as possible should see what you did. Audience makes a prank a prank!_

_Well, that was probably all you have to know about muggle prank-pulling. But maybe you want some help? We could bring some stuff when Mum and Dad come to pick you up. We'd love to prank those Muggles who are obviously mistreating you two. So, shall we join Mum and Dad when it's time?_

_Lots of looooooove_

_George 'n Fred_

_PS: Marmalade is awesome for pulling pranks. In shoes, in pockets, under the breakfast bacon. . ._

"This is brilliant," Harry said grinning when he had read the letter through. He couldn't wait to try out some of the tips he and Ginny had got from the twins. "Oh, I almost forgot," he continued, pulling the bag from under his shirt, "Breakfast is served!"

Ginny made an eager noise and snatched it from him. She plunged a hand into it, pulled out a bacon sandwich and bit into it hungrily.

"This is great!" she exclaimed, looking at him approvingly. Harry watched amused as she quickly finished off the rest of the contents of the bag. She had obviously inherited the Weasley appetite, though her eating style was much more refined than that of her brother.

When she was done, she threw the bag in the trash and said, "So, what's the plan for today?"

"I think it's time to give my dear relatives some hell," Harry responded with a grin.


	3. Pranking

**Chapter Three**

**Pranking**

That afternoon, Harry and Ginny decided to take advantage of the good weather and play outside. Harry went downstairs first, making sure the coast was clear. Ginny followed behind him. When they had made their way out the door, they went quickly down the street and out of sight.

Harry showed her around the neighbourhood. Granted, there wasn't much to see; most of the area was filled with residential houses, but there was a small park with a bunch of trees and a playground not far from Privet Drive.

They spent a carefree hour in the park, playing games and chasing each other before the heat became too much and they had to sit down in the shade of a large tree. Ginny was grinning at him, and Harry couldn't resist grinning back. He suddenly realised that, for the first time while living with his aunt and uncle, he was truly happy. He had experienced the occasional bout of happiness before, of course, but that was simply the kind of joy he felt when he managed to best Dudley at something. Those moments used to come with a price, though, because none of the Dursleys approved of Harry being good at anything that didn't benefit them in some way, such as cooking, cleaning or gardening.

The happiness he felt now was of a completely different kind. A friend to play with was something he had never had here before, and he enjoyed it immensely.

He picked up a flower that grew in the shade of the tree under which they were sitting and twisted it absently between his fingers, enjoying the companionable silence between them. He leaned back against the tree trunk, revelling in the feeling of actually having a good summer for once.

Then, all of a sudden, the flower was snatched from between his fingers by Ginny, who stuck it behind her ear. The yellow colour of the petals contrasted nicely with her red hair, and it matched the yellow dress she wore perfectly. She looked like a picture from a Muggle summer vacation brochure. He smiled at her again.

"I wish every summer could be like this," Harry said quietly.

"Maybe, from now on, they will be," Ginny replied. "You know, with the bond and all."

Harry felt his stomach sink and he looked away. The joy he had felt just moments before gave way to a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach that he couldn't really define. "Yeah, the bond," he said absently. Then he turned back to her and said, "you know, I've been putting this off, but I think we need to talk about that."

"Yeah, we should, shouldn't we?" she replied.

Neither of them was eager to talk about the bond though, so they just sat there, absentmindedly pulling up grass and dropping it again. After about five minutes of this, Harry decided he would have to say _something_.

"I didn't tell you about the weirdest part of the dream last night," he began. When Ginny didn't respond, he continued, "I didn't just dream about my first time going to Hogwarts, I sort of dreamt it from your point of view."

He looked at her again, and she stared back, her mouth slightly open.

"What do you mean, my point of view?" she asked finally.

"Exactly that," he replied. "I saw everything as if I was you."

"But how?"

"Because of the bond, probably."

She nodded her head affirmingly, then she said, "So did you just see or..."

"No, I _was_ you. I felt what you felt, thought what you thought," he paused for a little while, trying to remember the dream. "You were afraid of being left alone, of not having anyone to play with, and you longed for when you could go to Hogwarts yourself. A year felt like such a long time."

When he finished, Ginny was gaping at him, her eyes shining with moisture. "That's scary, Harry," she said.

"Yeah," he replied. "This is really happening, isn't it? I mean, we feel each other's feelings when we touch and now I think I dream your memories. You never really liked your mum treating you like a girl, did you? You'd rather play with your brothers than read girly books and play with dolls."

"How did you know?" she asked, shocked.

"I think I dreamt that too."

"So you dream from my memories?"

"Yeah, I think so,"

"Then why don't I dream your memories?"

"I don't know," Harry said. "Do you want to?"

"It would be a lot better than dreaming about Tom and the chamber," she replied coldly.

Harry grimaced and felt a little ashamed that he hadn't thought of that detail. "Yeah, sorry," he said. "I didn't think."

"It's okay," she said. "Do you think that the nightmares are the reason that you dream my memories but I don't dream yours?"

"Might be. I'm still here if you want to talk, you know."

"I know, thanks," she said, managing a smile.

"No problem," he said. "So," he continued, deciding to voice a thought that had been nagging him for two days, "what should we tell your brothers? They will be wondering about why you are staying with me. I know Dumbledore told us to keep it a secret, but I think Ron deserves to know the truth. I know him, and I trust him. I don't know about the others, though. You know them better than me, so it's your call."

"Well, Ron can be very protective of me, and I'm not sure how he'll react, but you are right, he should know. The twins will, hopefully, just make a few jokes and be done with it, and Percy will have been too busy polishing his Head Boy badge to even notice I have been gone. I think we should tell them all, though, because they'll find out sooner or later anyway. Better they hear it from us."

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "What about Bill and Charlie?"

"I haven't seen Bill regularly since I was six, and Charlie since I was eight. I don't want to exclude them, but I also don't want to tell them by owl. I could ask Mum to call a family meeting for when we get back..." she trailed off.

"Yeah, that sounds good," Harry agreed.

Relieved to have that conversation out of the way, Harry grinned at her and said, "So... what should we do about the Dursleys?"

• • •

After some discussion, Harry and Ginny decided that _subtle_ was the way to go, since Harry wasn't sure if obvious pranks were such a good idea with the Dursleys. If they could make it look like an accident, that would be perfect. This, of course, meant that most of the tips from the twins would be useless. Fred and George thrived on the attention they got from a prank well done, so they made sure people would be able to at least guess who were behind them, even if nobody could ever prove anything. Unlike most Hogwarts professors, however, Vernon didn't care for proof. If there was even the slightest hint that Harry had done something, he was punished, even if he didn't do anything.

Therefore, they decided to start small, and they both agreed that Dudley was the best person to start with.

When they got back home though, they realised that neither of them knew any good pranks they could play on Harry's cousin. Nevertheless, they went to his room just to see if an opportunity would present itself.

Harry knocked on Dudley's door, and when he didn't get an answer, he opened the door and stuck his head inside.

"The coast is clear," he said, gesturing for Ginny to follow him inside.

The simplest way to describe Dudley's room was "messy." The shelves were full of things, most of which Harry couldn't identify.

"What's that," Ginny asked, pointing at a cylindrical object standing on the desk.

"That's a Coke can," Harry said, feeling a grin spreading on his face. He clearly remembered Dudley offering him cans of various sodas, only to have the content spray in his face every time he opened one. He quickly learned not to accept them anymore. "It's a Muggle drink," he continued as he walked over to it and picked it up. "If you shake it, it will spray whoever opens it in the face," he explained, shaking it violently in the air. Ginny looked slightly confused, but she grinned too.

On his desk, Dudley had a veritable collection of cans, most of them empty. They were accompanied by a mountain of wrapping papers from what looked like the combined content of a small candy shop.

"Why does he have two televisions?" asked Ginny suddenly.

Harry was initially a little confused, but when he looked at where she was pointing, it all clicked.

"That's not a television, that's a computer screen," he said, pointing at the rectangular box standing next to it on the desk.

"What do you use it for?" she inquired.

"Honestly? I have no idea," Harry replied. "The only thing Dudley does with it is play some game where he kills aliens."

"Aliens?"

"Yeah, people from other planets."

"Muggles think there are people on other planets?" she asked, frowning slightly.

"Eeh, no... or maybe, I don't know," he faltered. "The point is that it's completely pointless."

"Is there any way we can use it for a prank?"

"Dunno," he said, eyeing the box.

"Is it eclectic too? She asked, "Like the television? With those plugs that dad collects?"

"Plugs?" he asked, and then a sudden idea formed. "Plugs!" he exclaimed, "of course!"

He dived under the desk and saw three plugs plugged into a power board. He pulled the two for the computer and the screen, but left the lamp in place.

"There," he said, surfacing from under the desk. "Now he shouldn't be able to start it."

"Great," Ginny responded, smiling wickedly.

• • •

Ten minutes later, Harry and Ginny found themselves working on their summer homework. As Harry had spent a lot of time cooped up in his room, he had finished almost all of his work. All he had left was an essay for the most boring subject: History of Magic.

Ginny, however, had spent her holiday playing with her brothers and going on holiday to Egypt, so she had a lot left to do.

"I just can't remember the two last uses of Dragon's Blood!" she complained loudly. Harry lifted his eyes from the parchment he was currently taking notes on.

"Why couldn't the author make a complete list of all the uses in the textbook instead of leaving hints and telling bits and pieces all over the chapter?" she continued.

"I wondered the same thing," Harry replied. "Hermione told me that it was to improve our research skills. But she made a list of them for us anyway." He laughed a little, thinking of his best friend's constant attempts at making him and Ron study harder. "Do you want some help?" he asked.

"Yes, that would be great, thanks." She pushed the parchment she had been writing on over to his side of the desk. Harry looked down at what she had written.

_Potions  
Essay on Dragon's Blood  
By Ginevra Weasley  
For Professor Severus Snape_

_Dragon's blood is the sap of the Dracena cinnabari, also known as the Soctora Dragon Tree or Dragon's Blood Tree. It is dark red in colour and is a highly magical substance used in many potions, a lot of them healing potions._

_It has twelve known uses, and is one of few potion ingredients that also have several non-magical uses._

_The discovery of all twelve of its uses is credited to Albus Dumbledore._

_The uses can be divided into two groups. Potion related and non-potion related. There are six of each._

_Potion related uses of Dragon's Blood__:_  
_1\. Prevents scarring in physical wounds_  
_2\. Relieves menstrual pains_  
_3\. Eases breathing_  
_4\. Relieves stress_  
_5\. Main ingredient in the photo developing potion_  
_6._

_Non-potion related uses of Dragon's Blood:  
1\. Used in stress relieving incense  
2\. Violin varnish  
3\. Pottery glue  
4\. Red fabric dye  
5\. Toothpaste ingredient  
6._

Harry looked up from her list. "I remember that it's used in alchemy in some way, but I don't think anyone but Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel knows exactly how, though. As for the last one, it's a great oven cleaner," he said as he returned her essay.

"Thanks," she said.

Harry laughed. "Don't thank me, thank Hermione. If she hadn't made us go through this list daily, I don't think I'd remember any of them. Thanks to her, I can now count half of them from memory.

Ginny started laughing, but was suddenly interrupted by a loud hissing noise followed by a scream from Dudley's room.

"What was that?" she asked.

"I think Dudley opened his drink," Harry replied grinning, which made Ginny grin in turn.

Soon, they heard Dudley's door open and heavy footsteps quickly making their way down the stairs. Harry and Ginny looked at each other briefly before sneaking out after him.

They had only come as far as the top of the stairs when they heard Vernon's voice growling from downstairs:

"And the can just exploded, you say?"

"Yes!" Dudley said indignantly. "And I hadn't done anything! I'd just gone downstairs to heat some leftover pizza, and when I come back to open my Coke, it sprayed me in the face!"

Harry heard Uncle Vernon mutter under his breath and he thought he caught words like 'that boy,' 'you-know-what' and 'punishment.'

Soon they heard the step at the bottom of the stairs creak under Vernon's heavy weight and they both scrambled into Harry's room again and sat on the floor they had recently vacated. They arranged their faces so as to look as innocent as possible, though neither could hold back a tiny smirk when their eyes met.

Their smiles disappeared entirely a second later as the door slammed open to reveal Uncle Vernon—red-faced and growling like a dog—his accusatory stare fixing first on Ginny and then on Harry.

"You," he growled, raising a finger in Harry's direction. "I warned you, boy," he paused and drew a hissing breath, "if you think for a moment that I will sign that bloody form of yours now… well, you can think again!" Then he slammed the door shut so hard that the pictures on the wall trembled, and Harry imagined that if the photos had been magical, their inhabitants would have flinched.

Harry's face fell. What would he do now? He looked over at Ginny, who looked like she was thinking hard about something, rolling her quill between her fingers. Not wanting to disturb her from her homework, he instead walked over to the bed and lay down. He thought about the injustice of having to live with the Dursleys, wishing that the Weasleys would come and take them away soon, and listening to Ginny scratching away on her parchment.

• • •

Suddenly he was jerked awake by Ginny.

"Harry," she hissed.

"Huh?" he replied sleepily.

"Look at this," she continued. She handed him a piece of parchment and when he took it, she went on, "I have made a little list of pranks we can pull."

As he looked at her, Harry realised that the smile playing on her face was the exact same that the twins would wear before they played a prank.

Harry pulled his eyes away from her face and looked at the list and smiled himself. These were great. They were subtle enough to be thought of as an accident, but still had the potential to be really funny. The list included such classics as _switch the salt and sugar,_ _Put spiders in the underwear drawer_ and _hide perishable food in strange places_.

"You're a genius," he said. He felt like he could kiss her, but of course he didn't.

"Let's get this homework done, and then, later tonight, let's prepare some pranks, okay?" he said, feeling his energy come back.

Ginny nodded eagerly.

"Yes. Let's!"


	4. The Weasley Twins Reply

_**A/N:** I'm back! And I have a new chapter for you! I hope that this will please you more than chapter three did, because I admit it was (a bit) short. This one is back to the same length as the others though. I have also had a good friend and beta go through the old chapters as well as gotten chapter 3 betaed properly and they're updated as of the posting of this chapter. If you've read them before, don't worry, there is no change whatsoever in the content, but they now have even less errors for the pleasure of those who just arrived._

_And before we get to the story I would also like to take the time to answer some comments that were posted that I was unable to reply to because of FF.n's less than satisfactory review system._

**_Natalia Zwickle wrote:  
_****_I think you have a great start here:) I cant wait 'til you update!_**

**_The only thing is that you didn't really explain the soul-bond well enough. You did create a situation where Harry and Ginny are forced to spend time together, and props to that, but you didn't explain how Mrs. Weasley or Dumbledore figured out that something was amiss besides just a regular sickness. Of course, I'm not entirely sure how you could do that if you are going to stick to Harry's POV only, but I'm sure you could come up with something! _**

**_Again, great start and I can't wait to read what you come up with next. Kutgw Natalia Zwickle_**

_Thank you Natalia for your kind words. I admit that I didn't explain the bond or the details surrounding it in too much detail, but I assure you that I have extensive notes on the subject and everything will be revealed in time. This is only the beginning and there are other priorities in the story development right now. You won't be disappointed._

**_Scott wrote:  
It not that bad the chapters are long and well written please keep going. Please don't over power harry and ginny or make harry a billionaire those are used to often. Yes harry is rich but not he richest person in England and yes harry s powerful and more powerful with a soul bond but that shouldn't mean that they are equally or as powerful as voldie or dumbeldore at least while they are teenagers it could be a very different story when they are in their late 20's or 30's. Try to get them to think through most of there problems such as the way you did with contacting the twins. But keep going I'm looking forward to more_**

_Thank you! Not bad? Sounds promising, can only go toward good from there right? As for overpowering, that's one of the reasons I'm writing this in the first place. Like you, I'm tired of these stories often blowing things up way too much with the power and the wealth and stuff like that. I'm trying to go from the angle of realism, explore the emotional aspect of being forced into this kind of intimate relationship when you are so young. Of course the bond is going to shape and influence them, and yes, they do get a little bit of extra power (there is an example of that in this chapter) but not that over the top as others sometimes make it. I hope to see you back!_

**_Scrappy wrote:  
_****_great chapter_**

_Thank you :)_

_Lastly, I have updated the story cover art. Hope you like it._

_And now, without further ado:_

**Chapter Four**

**The Weasley Twins Reply**

The following morning, Harry and Ginny got up early. They had decided to sleep in Harry's bed again, but unlike the night before, there had been no strange dreams on Harry's part. Ginny confessed to having nightmares, but they had not been as bad as before. She hadn't woken him at least, and she told him that his presence had made her feel better somehow.

As he dressed, Harry felt a kind of excited nervousness. They had prepared a bunch of pranks the day before—mostly simple ones—and there was no way to predict how the Dursleys would react.

• • •

_They waited until everyone had gone to bed before quietly sneaking out of Harry's room. The air felt cool through the thin fabric of their nightclothes and their feet made little tapping noises when they made their way downstairs which seemed unnaturally loud in the otherwise complete silence of the house._

_Harry looked at the list Ginny had made._

"_So what should we begin with?" he asked quietly when they arrived in the kitchen._

"_I like the idea of the salt and sugar," Ginny said. "I can do that while you set the clock an hour ahead."_

"_Sure," Harry said, raising his eyes toward the clock hanging above the kitchen table. He could hear Ginny already tinkering with the glass salt shaker._

_Harry took a chair from the table and put it under the clock to reach it, then he picked it off the wall and took it to the table. By now Ginny had got out a second bowl beside the sugar one and was pouring the salt into it before transferring the sugar into the salt shaker. Harry gave her a thumbs up and a smile before giving his attention to the clock again. It was your standard electronic Muggle clockwork running on batteries and the clock face and frame were all plastic. Harry thought about the clock the Weasleys had at the Burrow. That clock didn't show the time; instead, it showed the location of everyone in the Weasley family. It had one hand for every family member and around the clock face, the different positions indicated the general location they were currently at. This included home, school, work, travelling as well as a few others._

_He wondered what Ginny's hand would point at right now. He didn't think that the Weasley clock had a position for 'at the home of her soul bond mate.'_

_Harry flipped the boring Muggle clock over and started twisting the screw to set the time. While mindlessly turning, he glanced back at Ginny, who had just finished the salt-sugar switch._

"_So what else do we have?" he asked, nodding toward the list._

"_Well, we had five, so there's three more, but I only think we can prepare two of them right now," she said. "The milk and the stink."_

"_Right," Harry said. "Let's do them. You do the milk thing since it was your idea, and while you're in the fridge, get the egg. We don't want to have to get back in there after you're done."_

_Ginny nodded and scurried off to the fridge. Harry got up on the chair again and hung the Dursley's clock back in its place._

_When he had put everything back as it had been and was back on the floor, Ginny had returned to the table, an egg in her hand._

"_Come on," Harry said. He pulled her to one of the cabinets, opened it and took out a small plate._

"_Where are we putting it?" Ginny asked._

"_I was thinking either somewhere high up, or somewhere hidden."  
"I like hidden," Ginny said._

"_Then hidden it is," Harry replied grinning._

_He went to the pantry and led them inside. It was a large, square shaped room with shelves lining the walls, stocked with jars, cans and other products. Harry made a visual sweep of the area and quickly decided that in a corner close to the floor would be optimal._

_He crawled into the farthest left corner and cleared away a few empty bottles standing on the bottom shelf, then he took the plate and the egg from Ginny and cracked the egg on the plate. He placed it in the corner and covered it up again with the empty bottles._

"_There," he said. "Let's go to bed."_

"_Yeah," Ginny replied. "I'm tired."_

• • •

When both Harry and Ginny had got dressed and finished their bathroom routines, the clock was only half past five in the morning and it would be at least half an hour until anyone would be up.

Ginny and Harry spent their time going through the homework they had done the day before. It was boring and repetitive work, but for Harry, it kept him distracted from things he didn't really want to think about; mostly things to do with the bond and how everyone would react to it. But however much he tried to think about what was written on the parchment in front of him, he couldn't stop the unbidden thoughts from creeping up on him.

"Ginny?" he said at last, putting down the piece of parchment.

"Yes?" She answered without looking at him.

"Are you really sure your brothers won't beat me up for…" _for what? It wasn't like he was dating Ginny, was it? But with the connection they now had, there wouldn't be any kind of privacy between them. He might as well be dating her in the eyes of her brothers._

"For what?" Ginny said, interrupting his thoughts.

"For being so close to you," he finished lamely, but Ginny's expression told him that she understood what he really meant.

"Yes, Harry. I'm sure," she said. "I can't promise that they won't be mad about it for a while or try to intimidate you, but they won't hurt you. I won't allow that."

Harry gave her a smile and she returned it. "Thank you," he said.

"You're welcome," she replied. "But would you excuse me? I need the bathroom."

"Of course," Harry said. "I'll be here, working on my History of Magic."

"I'll be back soon." She gave him one last smile

Harry watched her get up and leave the room before he looked at his essay. It really wasn't his best effort. He was so used to studying with Ron and Hermione and having their input on everything he wrote that he could barely write an essay by himself anymore. Ginny had helped him of course, and he was grateful for that, but since she was a whole year behind him, there wasn't much she could do, even though she tried her best.

Deciding that he would simply have to rewrite most of it, he tore off the main body of the work—keeping the introduction, which was the only part he was pleased with—and scrunched the rest up before tossing it in the overflowing bin. But, as it landed on the top of the pile, it knocked something else out onto the floor.

Harry went to pick it up. It was a small ball of parchment. The same one that Ginny had thrown away the morning after she had arrived, when Harry had woken to find her sleeping at his desk.

Harry suddenly got very curious about what she might have written. She had said that it was a note apologizing for yelling about Ron having mentioned that that she had a crush on him, so it would be okay to read it, right?

Harry opened the ball of note carefully, making sure not to tear it and then read. At first he was confused, but soon guilt started creeping up on him. He shouldn't be reading this. It was obviously not meant for him, whatever she had told him that morning.

_I probably shouldn't write this, and the prospect of putting my thoughts on paper still scares me, but I don't know how I should deal with this situation. I'm not going to keep a diary anymore, but I need to tell someone; even if it's just a piece of parchment. It's not something I can talk to any person about, so I might as well do it like this._

_Dear parchment. Today I was told that I share a connection with Harry Potter. Well, actually it's a soul bond. Yes, I share a soul bond. With Harry Potter! Yes, I know! I don't know whether I should laugh or cry really. I wanted Harry Potter, of course I did. I have had a crush on him for as long as I can remember, but not like this! I didn't want it like this! I don't know what I should do, I'm stuck here at his house for I don't know how long, and I don't know what to do! Part of me wants to just stay here and bond with Harry, because it's almost a dream come true, but the other half of me wants to run as far away from here as I can because I don't want it to be like this! I want Harry Potter as my boyfriend, I don't want him to be bound to my soul and read my mind!_

When Harry had finished reading the note, he felt emotionally drained. That was very private. Not something he should have read.

Suddenly the door opened and Ginny walked in. Harry quickly hid the note behind his back, but Ginny, of course, wasn't easily fooled.

"What's that, Harry?" she asked, "What are you hiding? Your essay isn't that bad," she joked, trying to make him smile, but the fear in Harry's eyes must have been evident.

"What do you have there?" She tried again, this time more seriously.

"Nothing," Harry started, but quickly realized that he was as good as caught. "I mean, I didn't mean to read it. You said it was a note to me, so I thought that it was okay," he explained, his voice becoming quieter with every word. He produced the note from behind his back and then several things happened at once.

Ginny said, much too loudly, "Harry! I can't believe you read that!" and at the very same time, they heard a door open down the hallway and Marge's voice echoed through the house.

"Who's that?" And then even louder, "VERNON! THERE'S A GIRL STANDING IN THE DOORWAY OF POTTER'S ROOM!"

Ginny's face, which only moments before had been full of anger and annoyance at Harry, was now frozen in horror. She quickly ran into Harry's room and made to close the door, but she was too slow. Marge grabbed Ginny by the arm and proceeded to drag her across the hall and down the stairs while Ginny protested loudly, demanding to be left alone.

It took a few seconds before Harry's shock disappeared enough to let him move again, but when it did, he started running after them.

"Let her go!" He yelled, but, of course, no one listened. He tried to physically stop Marge, but she just shook him off, so without thinking about it, Harry grabbed Ginny's hand. At once he was flooded with Ginny's fear. He ought to have expected it, but he didn't, and it almost caused him to let go, but he managed to keep his hold on her.

Marge dragged them both downstairs, through the hallway and out the front door. She then fixed a stare on her that reminded Harry that Marge was indeed Vernon's sister and said, "I don't know who you are, girl, but I won't have people running around this house uninvited." Then she turned to Harry, gave him an equally stern look and went back inside. They could hear the lock click behind her.

Harry, who was still holding onto Ginny's hand, let it go reluctantly. He felt Ginny's fear leave him. Harry wasn't intimidated by Marge anymore. It was a long time since that summer when he had been chased up a tree by Ripper, but Ginny had never known anything other than a supportive and loving family. She wasn't used to the kind of bullying adults could expose children to, and she didn't have a method to deal with it.

Ginny sat down on the ground and hugged her legs. She looked like she might cry.

Harry sat down beside her and put his arm around her.

"It's okay," he said. "It's not like we're thrown out to live on the street. Marge likes to act like she owns the place, but I'm sure Vernon will let us back in soon. Despite how much he despises us, his fear of magic is even stronger. He'll tell Marge some lie about why you're here and everything will be okay. It's not like they can punish us. They're too afraid of what could happen if they tried. Trust me, I know these people."

"Thank you, Harry," Ginny said, attempting a smile.

"You're welcome," Harry replied.

A few seconds later, they heard raised voices from inside and heavy footsteps approaching the door. The lock clicked again and the door opened to reveal Uncle Vernon.

"Come inside, the both of you," he demanded.

Harry and Ginny both got up and followed him inside. Vernon led them to the kitchen table and sat them down opposite to Aunt Marge.

"So," Marge began, fixing her eyes on Ginny. "Vernon tells me that you also go to St. Brutus's. I thought it was an institution for incurably criminal boys, not girls."

"She's from the girl's centre actually," Harry invented quickly, nodding at Ginny. "It's next to the boys' one. I met her when they took both of us on a field trip once," he added.

"Yes," Ginny confirmed, all signs of her distress suddenly gone, "it was love at first sight really." She turned a bright smile at Harry. He could feel the heat in his cheeks as he blushed. His whole face probably resembled a tomato right now.

Harry felt a sharp pain in his ankle as Ginny kicked him and he nodded, "Yeah. We l-love each other v-very much," he stuttered. He looked at Ginny and tried to force a smile back at her. She was obviously much better at lying than he was. It was actually quite unnerving how she had gone from almost crying to smiling like she didn't have a care in the world.

"So I'm going to stay with Harry for the rest of the week, and I'll try to keep out of your way," Ginny said. Then she put her hand on top of Harry's, which was resting on the table, and from the feelings flooding into him, he could tell that however calm she might be on the outside, she was still just as scared as she had been, but a hint of smugness told him that she had quite enjoyed making him uncomfortable when she started talking about them as a couple.

"Now if you'll excuse us," she finished, pulling Harry out of his seat, "Harry and I have some unfinished business to attend to." And even if Harry hadn't had a direct link to Ginny's feelings, there was no mistaking that the annoyance in her voice was real.

• • •

When they walked up the stairs, Ginny let go of Harry's hand, and when they arrived in his bedroom, she had crossed her arms in front of her chest.

"Why did you say we are a couple?" Harry asked her before she could say anything. He knew she was angry with him, but he was a little annoyed too now.

"I thought it could be a good cover," she said.

"Cover for what?" Harry asked. He doubted that anyone would find them in any compromising situations that would need that kind of cover.

"I don't know," she replied. "Anything! You never know what can happen!"

Harry was about to throw another retort at her when there came a sudden loud clunk and a screech from downstairs.

"Do you think...?" Harry asked, momentarily forgetting about their argument.

"Yes," Ginny agreed.

"Wanna go see?" Harry suggested.

"Yes," Ginny said, then she turned and ran out of the room. Harry followed right behind her.

When they arrived at the door to the kitchen, they poked their heads in. Petunia was standing in front of the fridge in a pool of milk, her front soaked. Vernon was at her feet mopping with a handful of towels, Ripper was beside him trying to lap up as much as he could before it was gone, and Marge was still sitting at the kitchen table saying things like 'calm down' and 'Vernon is taking care of it.'

"This is great," Harry whispered looking at Ginny. "I would never have dared to do anything like this by myself."

"Well, you obviously didn't grow up with the twins," Ginny whispered back.

"Obviously," Harry agreed. "Remind me to speak to them more often."

"I will," Ginny said.

When all of the milk had been cleaned up and Petunia had changed, she proceeded with preparing breakfast. She never called for Harry, though, but he guessed that with what had just happened with Marge, they didn't want to see him right now.

A few minutes later, the next moment they had been waiting for arrived.

"Marge dear?" called Petunia, "Would you be so kind and fetch the bread? It's in the pantry."

"Of course, Petunia," Marge replied. She got slowly out of her chair and walked to the pantry door.

Harry and Ginny were both trying not to laugh. She had no idea what awaited her.

The door creaked open and a second went by with nothing happening, and then another. Harry and Ginny were locked in place with tension, and then it happened.

"Oh my lord, Petunia," sputtered Marge, "what do you _store_ in here?"

"What are you talking about-" Petunia began, but she stopped suddenly when the smell started spreading in the kitchen.

Harry poked Ginny and pointed toward the stairs. She nodded and they made their way back up to Harry's room.

"That was great," Harry said.

"Yeah," Ginny said smiling a little. "But I would really like to talk about that note you read, Harry." She didn't seem annoyed anymore, but Harry had learned now that she could be quite adept at hiding her feelings.

"Yeah, okay," he said. "I'm sorry I read it. It was obviously private and I should have stopped."

"And I'm sorry I told Marge that we're a couple," she said. "I guess I just wanted to get back at you by making you uncomfortable," she said, starting to reach for his hand but then stopping halfway. "And I forgive you. I was mad at you in the beginning, and I still am, but I don't think that fighting is the answer. We will never have privacy anyway from now on. We should probably focus more on trying to accept that fact. It's not anyone's fault."

It wasn't hard to spot the note of sadness in her voice.

"I know what you mean," Harry said. "I think we should just put it all out in the open. Say what we really think and feel about this bond and about each other, and then we can take things from there."

"Do we really have to, Harry?" Ginny asked in a tiny voice.

"I think we do," Harry said. "I think we need to. There's just too much tension between us sometimes."

"I know," she said. "But not now. When we're back at The Burrow, okay?"

"Okay," Harry said, and he smiled at her. This would be hard for her to do. It would be hard for both of them, but there really was no other way. They would have to prepare for when this bond got stronger and their privacy started to get compromised for real.

But not yet. It had only been a few days so far, but they had no idea of how fast it would go. They should probably start finding information on bonds as well. That was another reason to tell Hermione about it actually.

Harry looked at Ginny again. There was a kind of tension between them now, and it didn't feel good at all. Harry wanted to break it, but he didn't know how. The thought of spilling your innermost secrets to someone you barely knew wasn't comfortable.

"At least no one will be able to beat us at Quidditch with this bond between us," Harry said jokingly.

"No," Ginny said, smiling a little.

"Too bad we can't practice here, though," Harry said.

"Actually," Ginny said, "I may have the next best thing!" She ran to her suitcase and dug out a small, black rectangular box with a heavy duty clasp on the front. It looked old and quite worn.

"What's that?" Harry asked, but Ginny didn't answer. Instead, she opened the box slowly.

Inside was a small golden ball. Ginny plucked it out of the box and silvery wings unfolded on either side.

"A snitch!" Harry almost yelled. "Where did you get that? Why didn't you mention it before?"

"Actually, I sort of forgot I had brought it," she said, blushing as if ashamed of forgetting something like that. "Anyway, I got it from Charlie on my ninth birthday. It used to be his. He caught it in a match against Slytherin during his time at Hogwarts, but as it got older the charm started to wear off and it couldn't be used for training anymore—which is what he'd use it for—and as its flesh memory had already been triggered, it was useless in a match. So he gave it to me, because he had heard that I liked to sneak out and try my brother's brooms. I bet Mum told him about that."

Ginny let the little ball go and it hovered in place for a little while, then it turned and flew straight into a wall.

"Oops," Ginny said. "Maybe we'll need more space than this."

"I guess we'll see about that when we've caught it," Harry said grinning. Then he launched himself at the wall, attempting to trap it, but the ball escaped and collided with the opposite wall. Both Harry and Ginny tried desperately to catch it, but Harry wasn't as agile on the ground as he was on a broom in the air, and the tight space made it hard to move around too much.

Because of this, the fight continued for a good half hour. The little snitch managed to knock down half of Harry's books from his shelf, make a dent in two walls as well as his wardrobe door and make a crack in his window. Harry didn't care, though. He and Ginny had a great time.

Just as they managed to catch the little ball in Harry's desk drawer, there came a shout from downstairs.

"BOYS! BREAKFAST!"

It took exactly two seconds before they heard Dudley's door slam open. His heavy footsteps moved quickly past their door and down the stairs.

"Come on," Harry said. "I'm starving."

Harry and Ginny left the snitch rattling around in the drawer and went downstairs to eat.

• • •

Breakfast that morning was a mostly silent affair. Vernon kept glaring at Harry and Ginny over his paper as if they were some kind of pest that had moved into his house, and Marge kept scrutinizing their every move. Petunia, though, tried to avoid looking at them at all. The only noise that could be heard was that of cutlery clinking against plates and the sound of Dudley eating. There was still a foul smell lingering in the air, even though all the doors and windows had been opened to let the smell out.

The only exciting thing to happen was when Vernon put 'sugar' in his tea. Harry and Ginny had enormous difficulty keeping straight faces, but they managed not raise any suspicion.

Vernon took a sip and his face scrunched up in disgust, though he tried hard to hide it.

"Petunia dear?" he asked. "Did you do anything special to the tea today?"

"I did it like I always do," she snapped.

Vernon looked at his tea thoughtfully and took another sip. "More sugar," he muttered under his breath and poured another two spoonfuls.

When he drank the next time, he spat his tea out over the table.

"Vernon!" Shouted both Petunia and Marge indignantly. Harry and Ginny did their best to look offended and not burst out laughing, while Dudley looked at his father in confusion, a strip of bacon still hanging from the corner of his mouth.

Having put two and two together, Vernon picked up the sugar bowl, licked his finger, dipped it in the bowl and licked it off. "Salt," he stated matter-of-factly. Then he did the same to the salt shaker. "Sugar."

"I swear they were correct last night!" Petunia said.

Vernon grunted. "Hrmph." Then he took his cup of tea to the sink and poured it out while Petunia and Marge took sugar from the salt shaker. Dudley had gone back to eating.

• • •

The next two days went by rather quickly. Harry and Ginny took advantage of the nice weather to go and play in the park during the day, and in the evenings they stayed in Harry's room, talking about things like Quidditch (Harry was sure the Montrose Magpies would take home the League again, but Ginny bet him a galleon that the Holyhead Harpies would beat them this year), the Dursleys (still terrible people) and what they wanted to do when they finally got home to the Burrow.

When on the evening before the fifth day of Marge's visit, the Dursleys announced that they would go out for the day, Harry expected them to make him and Ginny to stay with Mrs Figg—a mad old woman who lived two streets away on Wisteria Walk, whose house smelled of cats and old people—but to his relief, they didn't, even though Aunt Marge made a strong case in favour of the idea. They apparently thought that leaving him and Ginny at home would be a better option than bringing them along to the cinema.

"What's the cinema?" Ginny asked the following day after lunch when the Dursleys had left. They were sitting in the kitchen and Harry had got them some ice cream out of the freezer (they didn't take much, no one would notice.)

"It's a place where Muggles show movies on a large screen," said Harry between bites.

"Movies…" said Ginny, thoughtfully. "Is it like tellyvision?"

"Sort of," said Harry. It's like a play, but it's been recorded with cameras... kind of like a wizard photograph, but it isn't confined to one location and it's telling a story."

"Oooh, I'd love to see one!" said Ginny, stuffing her last spoonful of caramel and chocolate ice cream in her mouth.

Harry got an idea. He finished off his own ice cream quickly and led Ginny up the stairs, but he didn't stop at the door of his own room. Instead, he led her further down the hall to Dudley's bedroom.

"What are we doing here?" asked Ginny.

Harry stopped in front of Dudley's bookcase which was stocked with video games, music CD's, models of cars and bikes, a few books and finally, a large collection of VHS tapes.

"Take your pick," said Harry grinning, pointing toward the tapes. "They're movies that we can watch on the television. We could get some popcorn and Coke too. I had some Muggle money exchanged last time I was at Gringotts. We can have our own cinema."

Ginny started bouncing on the spot. "Oh Harry!" she said, "thank you! You're the best!"

She started browsing the titles. It was hard for her since she hadn't heard about any of them, but Harry hadn't been allowed to watch more than a handful of movies himself, so he wasn't much better off than she was when it came to picking something out of Dudley's collection.

They finally picked out five movies with titles they thought sounded interesting, and after reading the summary on the back, got their selection narrowed down to two.

After a coin flip and some additional arguing, they finally settled on a movie called _Home Alone_, which was about a boy who gets left at home over Christmas and whose house is attacked by stupid-looking burglars.

They took the movie downstairs and Harry slotted it into the VCR, but, of course, the credits started playing, meaning that they had to rewind the whole tape back to the beginning. Harry sighed and started the rewinding process, then turned to Ginny.

"This may take a while," he said. "Let's go and buy some movie snacks in the meantime."

• • •

It was another beautiful summer's day out, and it didn't take long to arrive at the shops. On the way there, Ginny kept up a steady stream of questions about movies and video and Muggles in general. Harry thought she reminded him of her father, a fact he didn't hesitate to tell her.

"I do not!" she said indignantly.

"You do too," Harry insisted. "I wouldn't be surprised if you joined him in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office in the future, examining Muggle objects, and spinning theories about how they're used," he teased.

"Yeah right," Ginny said. "Can you imagine me in an office?"

Harry made a mock thoughtful face. "You're right," he said finally. "You look more like a-"

"Quidditch player," she shot in. Harry looked at her in surprise. "It'd be great, wouldn't it?" she said, her smile widening as she imagined it. "Soaring through the skies, the wind in my hair and the screams of the audience in my ears." She turned to Harry, excitement in her eyes. "What is it like, Harry? To play in a real match?"

"Oh, it's amazing!" he said remembering the matches he had played the last two years while playing Quidditch for Gryffindor at Hogwarts. "Hey, why don't you apply for a position on the team this year? You'll be starting second year, you're allowed to do tryouts!"

"Really? You think I'll have a chance?" Ginny asked.

Harry thought about that. He didn't want to lessen her expectations, but Oliver Wood, the Gryffindor Quidditch captain, wasn't very keen on allowing new players onto the team. Harry had been on the team for two years now, and most of the others had been playing together for another 2 years. Wood's strategy was to keep a team that knew how the others played rather than simply picking the best players that were available. In fact, last year he hadn't held a tryout for new team members at all. But Harry promised himself that he would at least try to make Wood see Ginny play.

"I think you may have a decent shot at it, from what I've seen with your handling of the Snitch the other day," he said encouragingly. "As long as you don't apply for seeker," he added smirking. "That position is still mine."

Ginny swatted him playfully on the shoulder. "You wish, Potter," she said.

Harry disregarded this comment and instead pointed toward a red brick building with a sign saying _Tesco_.

"That's where we're going," he said, feeling a weird kind of excitement creeping up on him. It wasn't like he was usually excited to go shopping, but this was the first time he got to be in a Muggle store by himself, with his own money to spend. He could buy all the things that the Dursleys had denied him for all those years.

Making his best effort to keep a grin off his face, he walked through the doors, hearing a soft 'oooh,' from Ginny when the doors opened by themselves. He leaned over and whispered in her ear, "Act like this is all normal to you."

She nodded. "I do come from a magical family after all. I'm used to doors that open by themselves. I just didn't expect those to do that."

"That's not what I meant," Harry said smiling.

They went through the aisles, looking at everything, and despite her promise, Ginny couldn't keep herself from asking—in hushed whispers—about the canned food, the frozen prefabricated meals, and the many kinds of sweets and drinks that she had never heard of.

They ended up buying a two litre bottle of Coke and a package of microwave popcorn. Ginny also convinced Harry to buy them a bar of chocolate, since she had never had Muggle chocolate.

On their way home, Ginny insisted on carrying everything. She kept turning over the popcorn package, looking at the instructions and reading the ingredients. She asked why Coke was black and why it kept bubbling (she thought it looked ominous) and she wondered whether Muggle chocolate tasted as good as Wizard's did.

By the time they were back at number four, Harry was all out of answers, so he put Ginny to work with breaking up the chocolate and putting it in a bowl while he made the popcorn.

"Do you really mean that you don't need a pot to make this popcorn?" Ginny asked when she was finished. "You just put a bag in there and push a button?"

She pushed her face against the glass door of the microwave oven and watched in fascination as the bag swelled and started making popping noises.

When they had everything finished, they took it into the living room.

"This is going to be great!" Ginny said, sitting down in the sofa and grabbing the popcorn bowl.

"Yeah," Harry said, settling down beside her. He picked up the remote, pressed play and the VCR rattled to life. The screen flickered momentarily and then, pictures appeared.

• • •

When the movie was over, the chocolate gone, the popcorn eaten and the Coke drunk, Harry and Ginny had assumed horizontal positions, Harry on the sofa and Ginny on the soft rug on the floor, just beneath him.

"That was great," Ginny said for about the 100th time. "Can we see another one?" Her eyes were full of happiness and wonder, and Harry would have loved to oblige her request but, unfortunately, the Dursleys could be home any minute and they had to clean up.

"Maybe another day," he said. Ginny pouted a little, but seemed to understand. "Let's get this stuff away before my relatives come back."

With the help of teamwork, they managed to get everything washed up and restored to their original position in about ten minutes. Just as they slid Dudley's movie back in his bookcase (without rewinding it of course) they heard the car park in the driveway.

"Just in time," Harry whispered.

They returned to Harry's room, where Harry sat on the bed and Ginny occupied the desk. They didn't say much, but instead simply enjoyed the afterglow that you can only get after watching a good movie and eating a lot of junk food. Feeling suddenly drowsy, Harry leaned back on the bed and closed his eyes. "Best day ever," he said. He turned his head toward Ginny, who smiled back at him. "Yeah," she agreed. Her fingers reached out on the desk and seemingly unconsciously grabbed the box containing her snitch; then she popped the lid open and looked at it longingly. "Did you really mean what you said earlier?" she asked suddenly. "Do you really think I can make the Quidditch team?"

"Well," said Harry, deciding it was best to be completely honest this time. "I haven't seen you actually play a game, but if you're anywhere near as good as your brothers, I'd say you have a good chance." He paused a little, while deciding how to go on. "Assuming that Wood holds tryouts this year," he finished.

Ginny's face fell. "You mean he doesn't have tryouts?"

"Not always. But I'll talk to him and ask if he can make an exception for you," Harry promised.

Ginny smiled at him. "Thank you Harry," she said.

"You're welcome," he replied. "I'm knackered, mind if I take a nap?"

"Mind if I join you?" Ginny said back. "All that excitement wore me out too."

Harry scooted over to make room for her. "Of course not," he said.

• • •

When they woke up, it was to the sound of Aunt Marge's deep voice.

COME DOWN THE BOTH OF YOU! IT'S TIME FOR DINNER!

Harry opened his eyes, expecting to see the glaring red digits of his alarm clock, but instead was faced with red forest of hair, and as he took a breath, he noticed, slightly to his own embarrassment, that Ginny's hair smelled quite good.

He quickly put that thought out of his mind and lifted his head to look over her at the clock. It showed that it was soon seven in the evening. They must have been sleeping for hours.

"Ginny," he whispered leaning close to her ear. "Wake up, dinner's ready."

He shook her shoulder and she stirred slightly. "Mum?" she asked opening her eyes sleepily.

"No, it's Harry," he said grinning. "Come on, get up. It's time for dinner."

They got up slowly, but eventually they had got downstairs and sat by the dinner table. Harry sat beside Ginny as usual with his back to the kitchen door, and Marge and Vernon sat on their opposite side.

Harry wished that they could be taken back to the Burrow already. He didn't know if he could take another meal being stared at, or questioned or intimidated. He was at least lucky to have Ginny there, he thought, glancing over at his new friend, or bond mate, whatever people wanted to call it. The fact remained, he really enjoyed spending time with her. More than he had expected he would actually.

Harry tried to shut out the sound of the Dursleys talking as best as he could for the next hour. Instead, he focused on keeping a light conversation with Ginny.

They had almost finished and Harry was about to take their plates to the sink to wash them up, something Vernon was already doing, when, suddenly, there came a series of faint bangs from upstairs. Harry turned in his seat, but it seemed that he was the only one to notice. When the noise moved down the stairs though, bouncing between the walls and, by the sound of it, knocking down a frame, the others started to react.

"What the bloody devil is going on now?" roared Uncle Vernon, turning away from the sink.

Harry and Ginny turned as well. Looking out into the hallway, Harry thought he saw a shadow move across the doorway and moments later, a familiar shot of gold rocketed into the room.

Harry ducked as the snitch passed over his head, but Vernon, still holding his plate, wasn't as fast and the ball was heading right for him.

There was a painful sounding _thunk_ as the snitch impacted his forehead and then a _crack_ as his plate hit the floor. Vernon gave a resounding roar and started waving wildly in the air, trying to swat the offending object away, but it was too late. It had already moved on to destroy other things.

Then panic erupted.

Everyone sitting at the table shot up from their seats. Marge sent the table crashing painfully into Harry's and Ginny's legs, making them topple backward onto the floor.

By the time they had got themselves back up, the snitch had already tipped over the coffee maker, put a dent in the fridge door, knocked down more frames, put the ceiling lamp swinging and before anyone had time to react, flown out through the window, breaking the glass as it went. Harry and Ginny were in shock. That was _not_ part of their plan.

"What was that thing!" yelled Vernon, a snitch-shaped mark in the middle of his forehead.

"Was it a bird?" suggested Marge, looking around at the wrecked room in confusion. But Vernon wasn't fooled.

"What did you do?!" he roared.

"I didn't do anything!" he answered instinctively.

"You know damn well that's a lie!" spat Vernon, saliva flying everywhere. "I bet you were behind the milk a few days ago too! And the rotten egg in the pantry?"

Harry didn't know what to say. He was used to being innocently accused, but this time, Vernon was actually right. It wasn't as easy to come up with a good comeback when you were guilty. But he didn't need to answer, because Vernon turned to Ginny.

"And you!" he said. "You are in on it, aren't you? You spoilt good-for-nothing-"

"No!" Harry yelled, his insides flaring up in anger. "Don't you dare attack her! You're nothing but a big bully!"

Harry could feel his body grow hot, and he knew something bad would happen if he didn't calm down, like it had before, but he couldn't let go of his sudden rage.

"You should have left this boy at an orphanage," shot Marge in suddenly, pointing one of her fat fingers at Harry. He had quite forgotten she was even still in the room; "He is not stable," she went on, "his mother was obviously drinking while pregnant. There's something wrong with his head."

"For the last time, my parents were not drunks!" Harry yelled at her. He had heard this from Marge many times before, but enough was enough!

"YOUR PARENTS WERE DRUNKS AND YOU SHOULD BE DAMN GRATEFUL THAT MY BROTHER WAS KIND ENOUGH TO TAKE YOU IN!" she screamed, her face red as a stoplight. She made to continue, but no words came out.

Marge's finger, still pointing at Harry, started swelling like a balloon—not unlike the kind street artists use to make balloon animals—and it didn't stop there. Soon her body started to grow too, like she was quickly being filled with air.

Harry looked over at Ginny, who was staring at Vernon. He was being inflated as well.

"Vernon! Marge!" yelled Petunia helplessly. She started reaching out to Vernon, who was emitting grunting and whining noises, but she quickly backtracked. Instead, she simply watched as her husband and sister-in-law slowly rose from the floor. It wasn't long before they were bumping comically against the ceiling like oversized party balloons.

Harry turned and ran up to his bedroom. Ginny followed closely behind him. "What are we going to do, Harry?" she asked when they had closed the door behind them.

"I don't know," he said. He was too upset to care about his relatives right now. This wasn't how he had planned the day to turn out, but, on the other hand…

"They deserved it," he said. "They have been asking for it ever since I got here after my parents died."

"But will we be able to put them right, though?" asked Ginny.

"I don't know," said Harry again. "And right now, I don't care.

"So we're just going to leave them like that?" she asked.

Harry thought about it. It was tempting, and he had a sudden mental image of him and Ginny at the beach, using Vernon and Marge as beach balls. He felt some of his anger fade away. It was quite funny actually, if he thought about it.

"Yeah, for now," he said, a little smile forming on his lips. "Like this, there's no risk of them pushing us around anyway."

Ginny smiled a little too. "Yeah, you're right."

• • •

Ten minutes later, when Harry had managed to calm down, there was a faint tap on the window. Harry turned and saw an official looking owl, large and proud, sitting perched outside. It was carrying a letter with the Ministry of Magic seal on it.

"Oh no," Ginny whispered. "This can't be good."

Harry let the bird in and took the envelope. He carefully broke the seal and extracted the letter, then read aloud:

_Dear Mr Potter._

_It has come to the attention of the Ministry of Magic that an unauthorised inflation charm was used at your place of residence at a quarter past eight this evening._

_I am simply writing to assure you that no harm has been done and an Obliviator, as well as an agent from the Magical Reversal Squad, have been sent out to deal with the situation._

_Hope everything is in order,_

_Cornelius Fudge_

_Minister of Magic_

Harry was confused. This was not in line with the Ministry as he knew it. And why would he get a letter from the Minister for Magic himself?

"So… I'm not getting punished?" he asked no one.

He turned to Ginny.

"Doesn't seem so," she said. She was fiddling with the box the snitch had been sitting in. "I'm sure I left this closed, but now it's open. How did that happen?"

"I don't know," said Harry. There was something not right with this whole thing. A snitch didn't simply run away by itself, and that shadow he thought he had seen by the kitchen door just before the snitch had charged in and destroyed everything… What had that been about?

Harry's thoughts were interrupted by two loud bangs—rather like those of a misfiring engine—coming from downstairs. He recognised them immediately as the sound of Apparating. They were followed by a short scream and a deep male and a young female voice yelling _'Obliviate!"_

"The Obliviators are here," he said matter-of-factly. He knew what was going on. His relatives were currently getting their memories modified so that they wouldn't remember anything about the magic they had just been exposed to, and judging by the hissing sound, Vernon and Marge were getting deflated. It sounded like air being let out of an air mattress.

Soon, there were two more shouts of _'Obliviate!'_ and again, the two bangs, then silence.

"Do you want to go down and see?" Ginny asked after a while.

Harry wasn't too keen on doing that if he were honest, but he thought he should at least make sure they were okay.

So he followed Ginny down the stairs and into the kitchen. It was still a mess. There was broken china on the floor, Harry's and Ginny's chairs were still tipped over and there was a slow and steady trickle of gravy from the interrupted dinner dripping off the edge of the table, as someone had overturned the pitcher.

The window was still broken and there was glass on the floor underneath it. The appliances were still lying on their side.

In the middle of this veritable warzone sat four people, looking utterly confused.

"Hello, Harvey," said Vernon when he noticed Harry, then he turned and looked at Ginny. "And… Grill."

"Wow, whispered Ginny. "I've heard that being Obliviated messes you up for a while, but this…"

"Yeah," said Harry. He didn't know what to say that would accurately portray what he was feeling just then.

He watched as Ginny approached Vernon, pulling something out of her pocket.

"Vernon?" she asked, putting a piece of parchment under his nose. "This is a form. I want you to sign it."

"Sign it?" Vernon asked, looking between Ginny and the piece of parchment. "Yes, sign, of course," he said. "Pottunia? I need my best pen!" he declared, turning to his wife, but Ginny seemed to be prepared. She pulled out a pen from her pocket too and shoved it into his hand.

"Thank you, Ginger," Vernon said, looking at Ginny, who simply put the form on the table in front of him and pointed at the line where the signature should go.

"There you go, Ginseng," Vernon said politely when he was done. Ginny collected the form, folded it up and put it in her pocket along with the pen.

"Did you just…" Harry said when she returned to his side.

"Uh-huh," she said, grinning and nodding. "You're welcome."

"Great Scott!" exclaimed Vernon suddenly, looking at his watch. "I have to go, I need to be at work by ten!"

He started moving toward the hallway, but Harry managed to stop him.

"You're on holiday," He said, emphasising every syllable, making sure Vernon understood, because even though it was tempting to just let him go to work in his confused state at this time simply to see what would happen, he realised that things had gone far enough.

"It's half past eight in the evening and it's getting dark," he said. "You should go to bed."

Then Harry led his uncle out into the hallway and up the stairs.

"Get the others," he called back to Ginny. "Let's get these sorry excuses for people into bed and clean up this mess.

• • •

It took them at least half an hour to get Vernon, Petunia, Marge and Dudley to bed, but their biggest surprise of the day awaited them when they came back down to the kitchen.

"Hello," said Fred.

"What the bloody hell happened here?" finished George.


	5. Telling a Secret

**Chapter Five**

**Telling a Secret**

It took a few moments for Harry and Ginny to recover from the shock.

"Fred…" said Ginny, "George… what are you doing here?"

"You first," said George.

"You answer our question and we answer yours," added Fred,

"George gestured around the room. "_What,_" he said, "_exactly_ did you do?"

Harry and Ginny looked at each other. "Accident," Harry said.

"An accident?" asked Fred in disbelief.

"Did you _accidentally_" explode a bomb in here?" continued George.

"Not too far from the truth, actually," said Ginny.

"Uncle Vernon and Aunt Marge started yelling at us," said Harry, "and I got angry. We both did. And suddenly they became balloons."

"But that wasn't until after the snitch trashed the place," added Ginny.

"Okay, hold up," said George. "Tell us what happened."

"From the beginning if you don't mind," added Fred.

Harry and Ginny told the twins everything about the pranks they had played the day before and how no one had known it was them. In fact, they hadn't even noticed yet that the clock in the kitchen was ahead an hour, which the twins found disappointing, but they still praised them on their ingenuity in pranking. However, when Harry got to the end of the story and started describing the snitch wrecking the kitchen and the fight that had broken out because of it, the twins went quiet.

"We're sorry," they said in unison when the story was finished.

"We take the blame," said Fred, standing up.

"It was all our fault," continued George, doing the same.

"We released the snitch," said Fred.

"You!" said Ginny. "You let my snitch get away! And you ruined the end of a perfect day!"

"She sounds a bit like mum when she's angry, doesn't she?" asked Fred.

"She does," agreed George. "And we apologise for ruining your day little sister."

"I'll accept the apology when I've calmed down," said Ginny. "And you still owe me a snitch."

"Fair enough," said Fred. "But do you really expect that we would just let it go?"

George put a hand in his pocket. "We watched everything from the bushes outside the kitchen window. As soon as it went through the window we set out after it." He pulled out a little ball from his pocket and held it out to his sister.

"Here you are, Ginny," he said, grinning at the disbelief on Ginny's face.

"Thanks," she muttered.

Fred and George pulled Harry and Ginny in for a group hug.

"We've really missed you two," they said. "Now how about we take you to the Burrow?"

• • •

It didn't take long for them to get ready. The twins helped Harry and Ginny to get their few things together and they collected everything in the backyard. It was cold outside by now and Harry shivered a little. He could see Ginny doing the same, hugging herself to keep warm, as they were only wearing worn old jackets that Harry had inherited from Dudley.

The twins shrunk all of their belongings and put them in a bag which they had put a featherlight charm on.

"Okay then, everyone ready?" asked Fred.

"Yeah," said Harry, and he and Ginny climbed aboard Harry's Nimbus 2000. Ginny wrapped her arms around Harry's waist and Harry kicked off, hovering in mid-air.

"I'm going to put a disillusionment charm on you," said Fred. "We've been trying to learn it. You can imagine the obvious pranking benefits of going invisible for a little while, but we haven't perfected it yet, so you won't be completely invisible, but the evening light should make us harder to spot. Nonetheless, you'll have to be careful not to let the Muggles see you."

Fred gave them both a light tap on the top of their heads. It felt kind of like someone cracking an egg on it, but as the cool sensation of something liquid started spreading over him, he noticed that he started to fade. It seemed like his skin and clothes were doing their best to take on the colour of that was directly behind it, but it wasn't perfect. It seemed to Harry that it was all slightly more blue than it should be. It also had a small delay when he moved, giving him the impression of being a marginally out-of-sync blue shadow. He looked behind him at Ginny, and saw that she was shifting toward yellow.

"I think that's the best I can do right now," said Fred, looking slightly disappointed with his spell work. He performed the spell on himself and George too, who turned green and a violent shade of pink respectively and then, with the twins in the lead, they shot into the dark sky.

• • •

It was the middle of the night when they arrived at the Burrow. Harry was shivering in the cold and seriously regretting that he hadn't learned any kind of charm to keep warm in cold weather, because one of those must surely exist, and by the way Ginny's arms were shaking around him, she was probably thinking something similar.

They touched down softly on the grass outside the house and Harry had a flashback to the previous year, when he had arrived in a similar manner, though this time they weren't greeted by Mrs Weasley running out and yelling at them.

The four of them walked in silence toward the house, and when they entered into the kitchen, they were met, not surprisingly, by Mrs Weasley sitting at the table, her hands cradling a cup of tea. She had obviously been waiting up for them.

"Really," she said looking at the twins. "The next time you two decide to go on a rescue mission to get Harry, I would appreciate it if you at least left me a note. This is the second time in two years!" She didn't sound angry this time, which Harry had worried that she might be. "I realized what you had done as soon as you were gone, and I know that you only meant well, but I would really rather you let me know. Now off to bed with all of you," she said, and before they could get away, she shouted, "I want to talk to you two tomorrow!" to the Fred and George.

The twins left so fast that if Harry hadn't known better, he might have thought they'd disapparated, but Harry and Ginny stayed behind.

"Yes, dears?" Mrs Weasley said, looking up at them.

"We just wanted to say that we want you to call a family meeting," said Ginny. "We think it's best if everyone in the family knew about our… little situation."

She glanced at Harry, who nodded and said "she's right. We know that Dumbledore told us not to tell anyone, but it doesn't feel right to keep this from your family. They deserve to know what is going on. They're not stupid and will realize sooner or later that something is going on. Better they hear it now and from us."

Mrs Weasley looked at them with a strange expression, like a mix of disbelief and admiration. "Yes," she said finally. "Yes, of course I'll call a family meeting."

"How about tomorrow? After breakfast?" said Ginny. "We want to do it as soon as possible."

"I'll send the messages out tonight," said Mrs Weasley. "Now to bed with you. Harry, you can sleep in Ron's room as usual."

Harry felt a sudden sadness, and it must have shown, because Mrs Weasley gave him a look. He realised that he would miss sleeping next to Ginny. It had been like being back at Hogwarts in a way, having someone to talk to as you fell asleep; only unlike Ron, Ginny hadn't been sleeping in the next bed.

"Anything wrong, dear?"

"No, nothing," said Harry. "Come on, Ginny, let's go."

They walked in silence up the stairs to the third landing and stopped outside the door to Ginny's room.

"I guess… goodnight then," Harry said awkwardly.

"Yeah," Ginny said. "Goodnight."

Harry started raising his arms to hug her but thought better of it. You never knew which Weasley might be watching. He would bet his broomstick that the twins were hanging about somewhere in the shadows.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he said, feeling incredibly awkward, his arms hanging uselessly by his sides. He needed to make at least _some_ kind of gesture, he felt ridiculous standing there. He didn't know why he felt so weird in front of her all of a sudden. He thought they had gotten past that awkward phase.

"Yeah, see you," Ginny said.

Harry turned and walked away, waving a goodbye to her and she responded in kind. He silently hoped that it wouldn't keep being this awkward between them for the rest of the summer.

When he walked into Ron's room, he found his best friend already awake.

"Hey, mate," Ron said sleepily from his bed. "Imagine my surprise," he continued, "when the twins woke me up ten minutes ago telling me that Harry Potter had arrived."

"I can imagine," said Harry grinning.

"But seriously though," said Ron. "You're early! We didn't expect you for another week! Of course that didn't stop Mum from setting up that thing in here already!" He added, gesturing at the camp bed standing in a corner of the room.

"Yeah," said Harry. "Things got a little out of hand toward the end, one might say."

"So what's been going on?" asked Ron when Harry had gotten into bed. "I mean, why did Ginny suddenly have to live with you for a while? And I heard Dumbledore was involved…"

"You'll find out tomorrow," said Harry. "You all will." Harry was about to say that Mrs Weasley had called a family meeting, but he feared that might just lead to more questions from Ron. "How's Hermione doing?" he asked instead, hoping to change the subject. "Have you been writing to her?"

Unfortunately, Harry hadn't had time to write to his other best friend with all that had been going on, but he hoped that Ron had been writing to her.

"She's good," Ron said, and Harry was relieved. He felt a little guilty about neglecting her. "Said in her last letter a few days ago that they'd be heading home from France soon. I actually think they might be home by now," he continued.

"That's good," said Harry. "We should ask her when she's going to Diagon Alley," said Harry absentmindedly. He was hoping to take her aside then and tell her about the bond. It wasn't something he wanted to put in a letter, but he wanted to tell her before they got on the train, give her some time to let it sink in.

"Diagon Alley?" said Ron, "We haven't even gotten our Hogwarts letters yet!"

That was true, thought Harry. "Yeah, you're right," he said. "Probably a little early to think about that yet."

Feeling a little embarrassed about the turn in the conversation, Harry announced that he was going to turn over and go to sleep.

"Good night," he told Ron as he closed his eyes.

However, despite his exhaustion, he couldn't seem to fall asleep. Eventually he heard Ron's breaths deepen and he started to snore, but Harry was still awake. He felt like he somehow couldn't get comfortable, like there was something missing, and he realized that he had probably gotten more used to sleeping next to Ginny than he should have.

And with these thoughts, he drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

• • •

_Harry found himself at a party in the Gryffindor common room. He had just announced his and Ginny's bond to the school and everyone was partying in their honour. There was plenty of drinks and snacks available thanks to the twins and over the portrait hole someone had put a banner reading 'Harry and Ginny Forever'._

"_Congratulations__,__ mate," said Ron cheerfully coming up from behind him and putting a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Guess you're screwed for life now, right?" he continued, "Locked to my sister forever!" he laughed a little. "Where is she anyway?" he asked. "Haven't seen her all night."_

_Harry realized that Ron was right. Ginny wasn't there and Harry didn't think he had seen her since… actually he couldn't remember when he had last seen her._

"_I'll go and find her," he told Ron._

_Harry went through the portrait hole and out into the corridor beyond. He started yelling her name, but his voice only echoed between the walls of the empty corridor. Harry started checking classrooms, but they were all empty. Ginny was nowhere to be found._

_When he opened the door to the bathroom, there was a violent whoosh of air that sucked him through the doorway, but there was nothing behind the door. Harry tried to stop the inevitable, but he fell, arms flailing helplessly, down into the empty void beyond._

_As he fell, Harry thought that the trap should have been obvious. There wasn't, and had never been a bathroom in the corridor outside Gryffindor Tower, but no longer did he have time to feel sorry for himself for his apparent lack of common sense before he saw a dim green light beneath him. He was obviously approaching the bottom of this pit, and he was doing it fast._

_He hit the stone floor with a loud crash. He had landed on his stomach and his impact had obviously broken the ground because there were bits of stone floor scattered all around him._

_Harry started getting up from the hole in the ground. He found his joints were a little stiff, as if he had spent a lot of time in a very awkward position and his muscles and jaw felt like they had just endured an hour of non-stop workout, but he guessed that that was what smashing into floors at high speed did to people._

_He stepped back and looked at the spot where he had landed. The shape kind of reminded him of a snow angel, but with more stone and not at all as gracious._

"_Harry!"_

_He knew that voice._

"_Ginny?" he called back, looking around. He spotted her standing at the foot of a tall statue at one of the short ends of the room they were standing in. __**The Chamber of Secrets**__ Harry realized._

_Ginny was clutching Tom Riddle's diary in her shaking hands. Harry ran toward her and threw his arms around her. "You're safe now," he said. "I won't let him harm you."_

"_He isn't here yet," said Ginny, clutching Harry tightly, "But it's not long now."_

_Harry released Ginny and took the book from her. He didn't like that she was holding it. He didn't like what that book represented._

_Harry opened the book and started tearing out pages from it. The ground became littered with sheets of yellowed paper, but the book didn't seem to get any thinner. It was as if the book was growing more pages as fast as he was ripping them out._

"_You can't destroy it, you know," said a soft voice that seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. Harry looked around but couldn't see anyone._

"_You won't find me," said Tom Riddle, "For I have no physical form yet. I exist only in the mind of those who remember me. I am inside your heads." "No," whimpered Ginny, clutching Harry with one hand and grabbing her hair, tugging at it with the other. "Get him out," she said weakly, "Get him out."_

_Harry threw the diary on the floor and started stepping on it, but he knew it would be no use. He wouldn't be able to destroy this thing without a weapon of some sort. Something to stab it with. Last time he had used a basilisk fang, but the basilisk wasn't here now, and Harry had nothing he could use to protect Ginny from what was happening._

_Then Harry saw the hole in the ground where he had impacted. It was surrounded by sharp rocks._

_Harry grabbed the book and ran over to the crater. He picked up the sharpest bit of rock he could find and started stabbing the book with it. At first, Harry thought that his assault was doing nothing, but after a few seconds, small tendrils of ink started trickling from the scratches he was making in the front cover._

"_What are you doing?" yelled the voice of Riddle._

"_Destroying you!" Harry shouted back, "Just like last time!"_

_Just as Harry finished the sentence, there was a loud whoosh of air, and materialising in front of him was Tom Riddle. Harry reached for his wand, but it wasn't in his pocket._

"_Looking for this?" said Riddle smugly, producing Harry's wand. Tom waved it in a wide arc around the room and it was as if all the light in the room was sucked away into nothingness, leaving them in complete darkness._

_Ginny called out to Harry and Harry turned, running toward where it sounded like her voice was coming from._

_Harry lost his balance when he ran into something soft that yelped and fell backward. Harry inwardly hoped that he hadn't hurt Ginny too much as he landed on top of her in a tangle of limbs._

_Ginny yelped a second time when, completely unable to see where she was, Harry accidentally compressed her wrist under his hand when he pushed himself up._

_When they had gotten into sitting positions, Harry fumbled for Ginny's hand and gripped it tight. Across the room, green sparks started to fly from the tip of Harry's wand, currently in possession of Tom Riddle. The sparks, flashing like miniature lightning strikes, bathed the room in an ethereal green glow._

"_You have nowhere to go now," said Tom Riddle, walking slowly toward them. "I have you exactly where I want you." The sparks from the wand intensified and Riddle pointed the end of it straight at Harry and Ginny, who were cowering close together at the foot of the statue. "AVADA KEDAVRA!"_

• • •

Harry woke up dripping with cold sweat. He instinctively reached for Ginny, but there was no one beside him.

He looked around the room and reality started coming back to him. Orange, Chudley Cannons, Ron, the Burrow.

"Ginny," he whispered silently to himself, remembering the dream. He needed to speak to her. She needed him right now.

"Are you all right, Harry?" asked Ron from his bed as he noticed Harry getting up.

"Yeah," lied Harry. "I just need to… to get a glass of water."

Harry hurried down the stairs to Ginny's room, doing his best to make as little noise as possible. When he arrived at Ginny's door, he knocked softly and said, "Ginny, it's Harry."

"The door is open, Harry," she replied.

Harry opened the door and stepped inside. Ginny was sitting up on the bed and Harry didn't hesitate to walk over to her and wrap his arms around her.

"How are you doing?" he whispered softly, but Ginny didn't answer. He could feel soft tears landing on his shoulder and just held her for a moment.

"Thank you, Harry," she said about a minute later. "I don't know how you could have been there, but thank you. I don't know what happened this time. I'm usually able to handle myself, but this time I just…"

"It wasn't your fault, Ginny," said Harry. "And I don't know why I was in your dream. Usually we have to touch, but this time we were in completely different rooms on different floors of the house. We haven't been that far apart at night since this all started."

"Unless you count Egypt," said Ginny, attempting to lighten up the atmosphere.

"Yeah," said Harry. "Unless you count that."

Just then, someone cleared their throat by the door, the surprise of which made Harry and Ginny break apart instantly.

"What's going on?" asked Ron, half curious and half suspicious.

"I heard her having a nightmare when I passed the door," said Harry, looking at Ginny, who nodded.

Ron furrowed his brow. "I know you're up to something, Harry," he said. "I've known you long enough. I can tell. I don't know what you two are up to, but if it has anything to do with Ginny, I deserve to know, Harry."

Harry looked down at his feet before he looked up and met Ron's accusatory stare.

"Okay, you're right," said Harry. "There's something going on, and it concerns both Ginny and me, but I can't tell you now. You'll have to wait till we tell the whole family after breakfast."

Ron looked between Harry and Ginny thoughtfully, as if he could figure it out simply by looking at them, but soon seemed to give up. "Thanks Harry," he said sincerely, but his voice still carried a suspicious note. Then he turned and left.

"Will you stay with me for a little while?" asked Ginny.

"Of course," replied Harry.

• • •

Harry and Ginny were woken by Mrs Weasley whispering furiously at them. She was clearly trying to keep her voice down, but it took obvious effort.

"I don't know what you two think you're doing. I know that your situation is unique but this is completely inappropriate! I don't know what Harry's relatives have been letting you get away with but under this roof everyone sleeps in their own beds!"

She continued like this while Harry slowly got out of Ginny's bed. Apparently he had fallen asleep while comforting her.

"I will let it slide this time, but if I see it again…" She didn't need to finish that sentence. The stare she gave them was enough to make sure that they knew she meant business.

"I'll see you downstairs for breakfast in ten minutes," she finished before she went out the door.

When Harry walked into the kitchen he found that he was the last one to arrive. Ron had saved a seat for Harry, so Harry went and sat down beside his best friend. Harry noticed that the seat Ron had chosen for him placed him on the spot furthest from Ginny at the table. For some reason, Harry didn't think that this was a coincidence.

The atmosphere at the table was tense. Ron kept asking Harry where he had been that morning, but Harry didn't want to talk about that. He didn't want to make his friend more suspicious toward himself and Ginny than necessary before they could explain everything to him and the rest of the family.

Occasionally, Harry glanced over at Ginny. She looked nervous too, and Harry would have been surprised if she hadn't been. They were about to reveal their bond to the entire Weasley family.

Breakfast seemed to last forever, and Harry wished it would last even longer, but eventually Mrs Weasley announced that it was time for everyone to gather in the living room.

Harry followed the rest of them and sat down on a sofa next to Ginny. Ron sat on Harry's other side.

When they had all taken a seat, they were told by Mrs Weasley that now they were only waiting for Bill and Charlie. Harry wondered how they would attend this meeting, since Charlie worked with dragons in Romania and Bill was, as far as Harry knew, still in Egypt.

As they waited, Harry took Ginny's hand. It was an almost unconscious gesture. He simply reached his hand out, without looking, and there it was.

As he expected, Harry felt new emotions growing in him, but not as strong as before. Or maybe it was because they were both feeling the same thing right now, it was hard to tell. He couldn't clearly distinguish his own feelings from Ginny's right now.

They sat there for maybe ten minutes, holding hands discreetly, silently reassuring each other, before the first whoosh came from the fireplace.

To Harry's surprise, Bill's head appeared in the fire, and only his head. It was floating in mid-air, as if he had somehow gotten stuck on his way through the fire. The rest of them didn't seem to think this was strange at all though, so Harry assumed that everything was as it should be.

The head of Bill smiled and looked around the room.

"I'm the first to be here then?" he asked cheerfully.

It took another five minutes for Charlie's head to pop into the fire.

"I'm sorry everyone," he said, sounding out of breath. "We had some problems with a Swedish Shortsnout this morning. Poor thing lost all her eggs when a Hungarian Horntail got loose and broke into her enclosure last week. He stepped all over her nest, it was a massacre. She hasn't been herself since."

"I'm sorry to hear about that," said Mrs Weasley, getting up, "but now I would like to tell you why I called this meeting today. "I'm sure you have been wondering about Ginny, about why she became so sick and why she has been spending so much time with Harry. And in a moment, they will tell you, but first I would like you all to know that what you are about to hear is _very_ sensitive information. Dumbledore says, and Arthur and I agree, that the less who know about this the better, but Ginny and Harry didn't want to keep this a secret from you, and I think it's the right thing that you should all know. I just want you to know that you can't tell _anyone_ about this. Thank you."

Mrs Weasley beckoned Harry and Ginny forward and then sat back down again.

Harry and Ginny let go of each other's hands, got up and stood in front of the gathered Weasley family.

"I would like to begin with apologising for cutting your Egypt trip short," said Harry, at which Ginny elbowed him softly in the side and muttered, "you know that wasn't your fault."

"Even though it wasn't my fault," Harry added.

"But you could say that it was the beginning of this story," he continued. "You see, just as Ginny was getting sick in Egypt, I was getting sick too."

Here Harry paused. He hadn't prepared anything to say and he didn't really know how to continue, but Ginny stepped in for him.

"We had a meeting with Dumbledore the night we returned," she said. "And he explained everything. Or most things at least…"! Ginny paused a little before adding, "Well he gave us a starting point."

"What we are about to tell you may be hard to believe," said Harry. "We have certainly had a hard time coming to terms with it, and we're still working on that, but I hope that you will all be understanding.

"You know the story of how Harry saved me in the Chamber of Secrets," said Ginny, and Harry could tell by her restless hands and flickering eyes that this was it.

"Well," she continued, "something else happened that night. For some reason, Harry and I share a bond… a soul bond."

She paused to let that sink in.

"Harry's and my soul have… kind of connected, and therefore we had to stay close to each other. To keep from getting sick again. That's why I stayed with him at the Dursleys'."

"The bond is still just forming," injected Harry. "We don't know what this will mean for our future exactly, but we do know that when our skin touch, we can feel what the other is feeling, and we know that this will only get more powerful over time. We also know that it is irreversible."

Harry consciously refrained from telling them exactly how connected they would eventually be. He wasn't sure that they were ready to know that much yet, and Ginny didn't seem to want to mention that little detail either.

"Any questions?" Ginny asked.

So far, the Weasleys had been listening in a sort of stunned silence.

"Surely, you must be joking," said Percy. "There must be some other explanation!" he looked around at the assembled Weasleys as if one of them had any suggestions. "Soul bonds don't exist, I have never seen any kind of evidence for it," he continued.

"You are saying that Dumbledore told you that you were experiencing this… bond?" asked Bill, interrupting Percy.

"Yes," said Harry.

"Well, I don't see why he would be lying about this," Bill said.

"Molly and I were there," said Mr Weasley. "And we can assure you that this is the truth."

"So you're all just going to blindly trust Dumbledore?" asked Percy. "You're not even going to TRY to find a way to reverse it? Because Dumbledore told you that it can't be, you're just going to sit and do nothing?"

"I trust Harry and Ginny", said Bill, looking at Percy. "If it's a soul bond, I don't know, but from what I know from studying spells and curses, it might exist. Similar magicks have been mentioned in Egyptian scrolls, and the symptoms they are describing does seem to fit, unfortunately, so I wouldn't say it's an impossibility. I don't think Harry and Ginny would make this up.

"Are you sure about that?" asked Fred, "Ginny's fancied Harry for ages, you sure she doesn't just want an excuse to hang around him?"

"Fred!" Mrs Weasley exclaimed in indignation.

"Everyone knows it," said George, grinning broadly at Ginny and Harry, making Ginny blush until her face got as red as her hair. She looked down at her feet.

"How about we all just assume that what Harry and Ginny are saying is the truth and go from there," said Charlie. "There are a lot of things that need to be discussed if what they say is true."

"Why must we just assume that it's true," asked Percy, "there must be a way to at least confirm their claim of sharing feelings!"

"I think you're in denial, Perce," said George, looking at his brother." You just don't want to accept that Ginny is old enough to fancy someone."

Beside him, Ginny looked like she wanted to disappear on the spot, and Harry didn't feel too comfortable either. He had expected that not all of them would take it well, but he felt really exposed standing there while Percy essentially accused them of lying.

"This isn't about whether Ginny fancies Harry or not," said Mr Weasley firmly to George. "Nor is it about whether they're telling the truth," he continued, looking at Percy. Harry felt gratitude toward the Weasley patriarch then, but he wanted Percy to see that they weren't lying. He didn't want any of the Weasleys not to trust them, so he grabbed Ginny's hand.

Ginny jerked in surprise, and then he felt all her mortification flooding into him. But he also suddenly became angry at Percy for not believing them, a feeling he did not expect.

"You're making her angry," Harry said to Percy, unable to keep Ginny's anger out of his voice. Then then he looked at Ginny. He squeezed her hand in support and asked her, in a quieter voice, but still loud enough to make sure everyone could hear the question, "Why is he making you angry?"

"Because I want him to believe us, said Ginny. "Because we just exposed ourselves and he calls us liars." She looked up now, angry tears forming in her eyes, "If you don't believe Dumbledore, that's fine, I don't care, but don't assume that we know nothing just because we are younger than you are."

"I never said that," argued Percy, but he had the decency to look a little ashamed.

"You didn't have to," said Ginny.

Harry felt her anger recede a little as she finished expressing her thoughts, and her embarrassment died down a little as well. He felt her become more confident and her grip on his hand became firmer.

Harry noticed that everyone seemed to have an opinion on him and Ginny's bond, apart from Ron, who looked like he was in deep thought, but when Harry's eyes met Ron's and Ron gave a little nod, Harry felt a weight lift off him that he hadn't known was there.

"So does this make you our soul brother then?" asked Fred, breaking the silence. "You've always been more or less family from the start, of course," he continued, "but is it official now?"

Harry smiled a little to himself, though he was sure that everyone could see it too, and Ginny blushed a little more, but she was much calmer now.

"So how about we discuss some of the more obvious complications here?" suggested Charlie.

• • •

"I want you to know that I support you two," Ron said ten minutes later. The three of them had slipped out of the room into the kitchen when the others had started discussing details such as what to do if they indeed could not break the bond, how things might be handled at Hogwarts and, thanks to Mrs Weasley bringing it up, Harry and Ginny's sleeping arrangements.

"Thanks," said Harry and Ginny. "It means a lot."

"Just don't do anything I wouldn't do," Ron said, looking pointedly at Harry, who felt his cheeks heat up again.

They could hear the others still talking lively in the living room. Percy was still trying to find other ways to explain what had happened to Harry and Ginny.

"This morning…" Ron said slowly, "was that about…"

"Yeah," said Harry, "Ginny was having a nightmare." He looked at Ginny, trying to gauge how much he should tell Ron.

"We share dreams sometimes," said Ginny, taking over from Harry. "I was having a nightmare and he helped me. He just wanted to comfort me," she said.

"I see," said Rom, looking down at the table.

"We know this must be strange for you," said Harry, "but believe us, it's strange for us too."

"We didn't ask for this to happen," said Ginny. "It's strange and a lot of the time we don't know what's going on ourselves, or how to handle it," she said. "So please try not to treat us any differently. Yes, it's true we will probably be closer now, and I will probably end up hanging around you guys, and Hermione too, a lot more than I have, but if you can get over having your little sister around more… I think this would be easier for all of us."

"Well it's not like I don't like you," said Ron, looking up at her. "Remember when we used to play before I went to Hogwarts?" He smiled as if remembering something amusing. "It's just… me, Harry and Hermione were already so close and you, well, you were usually with other first years, you know?"

Ginny smiled then. "So you think you could handle your trio becoming a quartet?"

"I think I could manage," said Ron, smiling back at them. "It may be strange at first but I think I'll get used to it."

"I think we all need some time to get used to this," said Harry. "Thanks for being understanding."

"Hey, no problem," Ron said, then he looked at Harry, "you wanna go flying? I think they might be a while in there."

• • •

It took some persuasion to make Ron agree to let Ginny come and fly with them, but once he relented, she quickly proved that she could stand her own against both of them on the Quidditch pitch.

Harry, Ginny and Ron came back inside a few hours later. They had tossed apples to each other to catch and then tried to throw them through the gap between two branches of a tree, taking turns to act as the keeper, trying to stop it.

When it was time for lunch though, they made it back to the house. They found Mr Weasley sitting outside with a Muggle magazine and once inside, they were greeted by Mrs Weasley and a plate of sandwiches.

"There you are," she said. "Sit down." It sounded more like an order than an invitation, so they didn't question her as they each took a seat and grabbed a sandwich.

"Now," Mrs Weasley began, "We have decided that we're going to talk to Dumbledore about how this bond will be handled at school. We don't know how fast your… abilities… will develop, so we think that we need to formulate a plan."

Ron looked at Harry and Ginny, like he wanted to ask something, but he kept quiet.

"Further, I will not tolerate that you sleep in the same bed," said Mrs Weasley firmly, and both Harry and Ginny blushed.

"It wasn't like that," said Ginny silently.

"You should sleep in your own beds," she continued, obviously not hearing Ginny. "There is no reason for you to share a bed, even if you share… other things. It's simply not appropriate!"

Harry simply nibbled on his sandwich, too embarrassed to say anything. If Mrs Weasley thought they were… no, that was ridiculous. He had simply comforted her after having a nightmare, that was all.

"Finally," said Mrs Weasley, "Percy has volunteered to research this bond. He wants to see if there's a way to stop it from developing. Oh, he still believes you," she said, seeing the looks on Harry and Ginny's faces; "He just… he simply wants what's best for you, you know. And Bill and Charlie wish you both good luck," she finished.

"Tell them that we are thankful for their support," said Harry to Mrs Weasley, who smiled a little and promised them that she would.

When Mrs Weasley had left, Ron spoke up.

"What did she mean when she mentioned your abilities developing? Do you mean that it will go beyond this… sharing feelings thing?"

Harry and Ginny looked at each other. Harry still wasn't sure how much to tell him. He knew that they would have to tell him everything eventually, but Ron was still coming to terms with the soul bond even existing. Harry had to give him something though.

"Yes, there is more," Harry said finally. "We know that we will share other things eventually, though we don't know how long it will take. But according to Dumbledore, we will be able to read each other's minds too."

"Wow," said Ron, looking disturbed at the thought. "I can't imagine how it would be like to have someone else's thoughts in my head." He shuddered.

"Neither can I," said Ginny, and Harry felt her worry and fear creep into him, or maybe it was his own feelings that he felt. He couldn't be sure, but it felt like at least part of those feelings were disconnected from him somehow, like it wasn't his own, so it must be Ginny's feelings too. A cocktail of his own and Ginny's feelings mixed together inside him. Their future was uncertain. What if they wouldn't be able to handle this bond? Dumbledore had mentioned that there was a way to dampen the connection temporarily, but what if that wasn't enough? What if they ended up hating each other?

It took Harry a few minutes before he noticed that he and Ginny weren't even touching, and he was pretty sure that he could still feel a bit of what she felt, and it only took one look at Ginny to know that she had noticed it too.

"Are you guys okay?" Ron asked then, looking between them worriedly.

"I think it's starting already," said Ginny slowly.

"You mean… you can hear his thoughts now?" asked Ron, looking at Ginny in shock.

"No, no," she said, "but… I can feel his feelings… and we're not touching right now." She held up her hands in the air as if to prove the point. "Not as clearly I think, it's kind of… less."

Ginny got out of her chair and walked to the other side of the kitchen and Harry felt Ginny's feelings slowly fade. They didn't go away completely, but they were more muted.

"And now it's even less," she said, confirming it.

Ron seemed to be at a loss for words, and Harry couldn't blame him. Harry hadn't expected this to happen so soon. It had only been a couple of days, Harry had expected it to be a few weeks at least.

He suddenly remembered his promise to Ginny that they would have to talk about this bond, this whole situation and even though he dreaded it, he felt like they couldn't ignore it any longer.


End file.
